Sins Remembered
by CornishGirl
Summary: Dean has always been excruciatingly hard on himself, in memory and in the present. He can't help but remember what he perceives as failings, as things that endanger Sam. What he never remembers, however, what he never even considers, is that things can also endanger him. (NOW COMPLETE)
1. Chapter 1

_A/N: The show throws us, now and then, tantalizing tastes of what childhood was like for Sam and Dean. It was clearly challenging, fraught with danger and difficulty, but also has provided us with some wonderful bonding moments. These glimpses show what made them the men we watch, read, and write about. I'm a firm believer in that what's happened in our past informs what we are in the present, and who we become in moving forward. Whether we use those experiences to become better people is entirely up to us. (Thanks to Nova42, Blueriversteel, and Candy for their comments before I went "live" with this.)  
_

* * *

**Sins Remembered**

* * *

**He remembered.**

"Okay, kiddo. First time for everything. Listen, don't expect to be perfect. I wasn't. Let's just see what you got, okay? See what we got to work with."

He remembered the weight of the weapon. How it filled both hands, how it made him tense his arms, how his fingers clung.

How his father slipped a hand under his, eased the gun slightly upward. Dad didn't hold the gun _for_ him; he just provided a smidgen of support so that Dean could stop clenching his entire body with the attempt to hold the gun still. Dad _steadied_ him, just a little.

"Okay, Ace. You got this."

"All six bottles, Dad?"

His father's breath ran from his chest in a quiet blurt of amusement. "If you think you can, sure thing. But one would be good, Dean. One would be real good. And if you don't get it right the first time, next time is okay. Baby steps, kiddo."

He was six years old, and he'd gained an inch over what he'd been at five. "I can do this, Dad."

Dad's hand briefly touched his shoulder. "Then show me what you got."

Dean felt his father remove the support from beneath his hands, the gun. It was a measly little .22 pistol, nothing like the hardware his father used. But it felt big. It felt heavy.

And then it didn't. It felt _right._

The world narrowed. The world lost definition. All he saw were six glass beer bottles standing along the fence rail, six dead little soldiers emptied by his father. That was all that mattered. Six bottles. Six targets. Six opportunities.

What he wanted to do was what he'd seen in the movies: _one-two-three-four-five-six,_ one after another, a seamless string of reports as the gun fired, the popping sound of exploding bottles and the cascade of shattered glass. But what his dad wanted was efficiency, was precision. Results.

One at a time. Aim. Squeeze. Take the recoil. Steady his hands. Loosen his elbows, shoulders, then do it all again.

Efficiency. Precision. Results.

He fired six times. The gun was empty. Dean let his arm drop to his side, felt the weight dragging. He was suddenly six years old again, and even a measly .22 felt heavy in the wake of his first experience _shooting_ the thing.

"Holy crap," Dad murmured, clearly startled. Then his hand came down on Dean's shoulder, squeezed. Firmly, man-to-man. "Kiddo—I think you're what's called 'a natural.'"

Dean looked up at his father. "If you don't get it right the first time, next time may be too late."

* * *

_If_ _you don't get right it the first time, next time may be too late._

He didn't get it right the first time. Next time was . . . too late.

In the tree-fractured glow of a three-quarter moon, Sam went down beneath the black dog because Dean's first shot missed, and then it was a tangle of human limbs and the supernatural and if he shot again he risked hitting his brother.

He'd missed. Dad would be so pissed. Hell, _he_ was pissed.

Dean shoved himself upward from the ground. As Sam's gun cracked in the darkness, he'd landed hard, had twisted to duck beneath the black dog's leap, felt the crumble of soil beneath his right foot, the roll of a downed tree branch; felt the weight, the mass of the big beast as it crashed into him, snapping and growling. He twisted against the ground as he was pressed down into the earth, the leaves, the deadfall.

A second shot from a handful of yards ahead. The beast atop his body cried out in pain and rage. Then the weight, the pressure was gone, and the black dog left him. Left him and charged at Sam.

Dean came up hard and fast, on one knee, twisting, scrabbling, raising his gun. He heard Sam's blurted outcry, the scrambling of limbs for purchase in a hiss and crackle of decaying leaves; saw his brother sprawled beneath the beast.

Fortunately, unlike hellhounds, black dogs were _visible_.

Shooting was too dangerous. He discarded the gun, yanked the silver knife from his inside jacket pocket. Propelled himself across the ground and leaped. Landed.

Somewhere on the bottom lay his brother, still somehow fighting. Between his own body and that of Sam's was sandwiched a dog no animal control officer had ever seen.

Praying Sam could protect his vulnerable throat, Dean thrust his left arm beneath the beast's neck, caught it in the crook of his elbow, used every amount of leverage he could wield with elbow and shoulder, with back and abdomen, with the cords along his neck as his lips peeled back from hard-bared teeth. The black dog's sheer physical power was immense. But this was _Sammy_ caught beneath the thing.

Adrenaline surged, hard and abrupt, and with it came his own brand of power. He cranked the head upward, twisted it aside, knew he could never choke out the dog but he didn't need to. Gripping the knife hilt firmly, he slid the blade beneath the animal's throat . . .

. . . _stabbed and_ _sliced and_ _sawed_ . . .

. . . felt the stuttering shudders in the beast, the scrabbling of furred legs that prompted a rising moan from Sam.

_Frickin'_ _die already, you sonuvabitch!_

Then came the give, the fade, the sudden cessation of brutal supernatural strength. He felt the collapse beneath him. Smelled the stench of the blood. Knew himself soaked in it.

"Sam! _Sammy!_"

"—yeah . . ."

"Sammy!"

"—I'm okay . . . get off . . . _Dean_—"

Oh. Sam was buried under two bodies. His own, and the black dog's.

He sucked in air, shifted, rolled off the beast. Tremors ran over his body, shivered down his limbs. Adrenaline was spilling away, purging itself. He rose up onto his knees, locked fists into the tangled, wiry black hair, _yanked_ the sucker off his brother. In the doing of it he fell over sideways, collapsed against the ground. Lay there panting, because it was all he had in him to do.

"Sammy?"

"—yeah—"

"You okay?"

"—Uh. I think."

Dean tried to move. Could not. It felt like his body was encased in carbonite. "Did it get you?"

A long pause while Sam lay there and breathed. "Uh. Dunno."

"Do you _feel_ like it got you?"

"It feels like I got smashed beneath a meteorite. With teeth. And claws."

Dean sucked in and released air in gulps. "—a meteorite?"

"Have you ever seen that big-ass crater in Arizona? Yeah. A meteorite."

"Did it _get_ you, Sam?"

Sam stirred, crackling leaves. "Why don't . . . why don't we go back to the motel and find out? 'kay? 'Cuz right now . . . hell, I dunno. Maybe. Probably. Statistically speaking there's a likelihood, yes. "

"You're keeping statistics on black dog bites?—no, don't answer that. You would, nerd brain."

"You?"

"Me, what? I have no nerd brain, Sam. I have no statistics, speaking or otherwise."

"You _are_ a statistic, Dean. A walking, talking, breathing statistic of the unbelievable."

"Of awesomeness, too."

"You okay?"

"Nothing a hot shower, two days of sleep, a dozen cheeseburgers, and a few beers and whiskeys won't cure."

"Then let's get the hell out of Dodge."

"Shit," Dean said abruptly, wincing. "Gotta cut off the head, burn it and the body separately. And that means we gotta _dig_."

"But not a big-ass crater like in Arizona."

"Maybe when we go to the Grand Canyon we'll visit the meteor hole, too." Dean rolled onto his side, hooked an elbow beneath his ribs, levered himself up. Managed to gather and bend his knees, maneuvered onto a hip. Wiped the back of his hand across his sticky face. "God, I _reek_. I call first dibs on the shower."

Sam sat up. "Then you get to dig the holes."

Dean spat out a mouthful of saliva and—something he didn't want to think about. "Why the hell does the supernatural have to _stink_ so bad?"

"Right about now? You're pretty supernatural yourself."

"Backatcha, chew toy."

Sam unerringly found just the right insult to put away big brother. "Wouldn't have been a chew toy if you hadn't missed that shot."

He didn't mean it like that, Dean knew. Sam's digs were not ever intended to be mean-spirited, hurtful. Just typical skewed Winchester humor and sarcasm in the wake of a completed hunt. In the wake of extreme risk. In the wake of _sheer_ _relief_ that they had again survived. But sometimes, depending on where the needle of Dean's guilt-meter registered, Sam's jokes stung.

"Yeah."

And equally as unerringly, his brother realized how it could be taken, what he'd said. In typical emo Sam fashion, he backtracked instantly to mitigate, to soften. To make it right. "I shot before you did. I missed first."

And there it was: apology. Dean's mouth twitched crookedly. "Yeah. You did. We gotta work on that, Annie Oakley."

"Annie Oakley was a damn good shot."

"But she was a _girl_, Samantha."

_If_ _you don't get it right the first time, next time may be too late._

Had he ever told Sam that? He must've. He'd told Dad that. He remembered, because Dad had stared down at him with dark eyebrows jumping toward his hairline, and smiled slowly, broadly, as if in a wonderful, frightening discovery.

He _was_ born to be a hunter. That day, Dad knew it.

Sam cut off the black dog's head, hauled it away, dug a depression, salted and burned the thing. Dean tended the body, dug a deeper hole. Dumped accelerant and salt, dropped a match.

It was always a frustration that they could not simply walk away from a hunt and tend their hurts. No, first they had to _complete the job_, as John Winchester had taught them. And so they did what needed doing to destroy the body, poured water over the charred remains to keep fire from threatening the forest—_like_ _freakin' Smokey the Bear_, Dean had muttered once—threw dirt and brush on top of the two burial sites, then limped back to the Impala as the first hint of dawn began to extinguish the moon.

* * *

Dean did not enforce his first dibs claim on the shower when they reached the motel, because by then he knew Sam _had_ gotten nailed by the black dog. On the drive back, Sam shrugged out of his blood-soaked jacket, unbuttoned and peeled back the left sleeve of his equally soaked overshirt, turned on the domelight and inspected the bite wound on his forearm.

"Damn," he muttered, and hissed in discomfort.

Dean switched his eyes back and forth between the road and his brother's arm. "How bad is it?"

"I don't think it's bad." Sam licked a thumb, rubbed at a slick of blood. "Oh. _Ow_. Well, maybe worse than I thought."

"Leave it alone, Sam! Let me treat it when we get back. "Jesus, it's like you're five all over again." Dean scowled at him. "Anything else hurt?"

"_All_ of me hurts, Dean. What do you expect? I got hit—"

"—by a meteorite; yeah, yeah, I got it. Okay, we'll triage you when we get in, see what we're dealing with."

And when they got in, when they dropped duffels beside their beds, Dean made his brother strip out of everything from the waist up. In addition to the nasty forearm bite wound, though half-hidden by gouts of tacky blood, Sam displayed a wicked assemblage of raised, red claw slashes on his chest from clavicle to short ribs, but none had broken the skin deeper than one abused layer. By morning he would bear a spectacularly gruesome array of stripes and bruises, but he wouldn't bleed from any of them.

"Freddy Krueger," Dean muttered, inspecting.

"Wolverine."

"Nah, Wolverine's a good guy."

"Wolverine's an antisocial asshole."

"Wolverine's one tough bad-ass mo-fo, Sam. Don't you go talkin' smack about my man. I'd let him have my back any day."

"Maybe better him than me," his brother muttered.

Which informed Dean where the needle on _Sam's_ guilt-meter registered.

Yeah, he probably _had_ told a very young brother that if they didn't get it right the first time, next time would be too late. And now Sam remembered.

"Nah," Dean said, "he's just a fictional character. I'll take real-life Sammy Winchester at my back." He tapped his brother's welted chest. "Now let's see yours. Turn around."

Sam turned. He was helpful about obeying orders pertaining to injuries. Sam was the _good_ brother, the _cooperative_ brother. Sam-as-patient was a doctor's dream.

Dean was . . . an antisocial asshole. "And one bad-ass mo-fo," he muttered, inspecting Sam's back.

His attitude never had endeared him to doctors; and only to nurses when he decided to flirt, to be charming, to overwhelm them with the force of the Dean Winchester brand of bravado—because then they'd never see beneath his mask, beyond the act. He hated pain, hated weakness, detested what it made him into, if he allowed it. It was easier to hide such things, to open the box, stuff the pain inside, lock it up again and forget about it.

* * *

**He remembered**.

"Dad, Dean's hurt!"

Dean sat on the ground holding his left arm crooked against his ribs, startled speechless by the magnitude of _pain_.

"He was trying to be Superman, Dad!"

And Dad was there, kneeling down. "Dean, let me see."

"He said he could fly, jumped off the garage roof—"

Despite the pain, he yelled it. "Did not!"

"_Did so_, Dean! But the cape didn't work."

Dad said, "Let me see your arm, Dean. Stop guarding it."

It hurt. It hurt _bad_, when Dad held his arm, when he pressed fingers up and down the bones. Against his will, a tear slipped free.

"Dean's _crying_, Dad!"

"Yeah, Sammy. He's busted up his arm." Dad signed deeply, rubbed his brow briefly. "Okay. Well, no choice. I can't set bone. Not if it's to knit properly, not when it's like this. So, kiddo, it's off to the hospital. I've got that new card—we'll use it for this."

Dean protested at once. "But Sammy's _shoes_, dad! And—the soccer ball, for his birthday. You said the card was for that."

"Well, now it's for a busted arm, Dean. Think about that the next time you decide to jump off a roof. Because Superman isn't real, and if you do something stupid _in real life_ there are bound to be repercussions. We pay for our sins. So you get to wear a cast, and Sammy gets to wear his old shoes."

Dean blinked away additional tears. "They're too small, Dad. He already gets blisters."

"I put Band-aids on 'em," Sam said matter-of-factly.

"No," Dean said. "No, Sammy—you can wear my shoes."

Sam's voice squeaked in shock. "Dean, I can't wear your shoes! What'll _you_ wear?"

Dean sighed. "Red leather boots. Like Superman."

Dad muttered something. "Come on, kiddo. Let's get you up. Sam, go into the house and get my wallet, okay? It's on the kitchen table."

Dean watched his growing, gangly brother trot away in his too-small shoes. Then he felt the weight of his father's gaze. He wanted to look away, but John Winchester did not tolerate any display of submission. Obedience was required, yes; never submission.

_You're not a puppy licking at my mouth, _Dad had said_, and you sure as hell won't be peeing yourself. Stand up straight and tall. If you've done wrong—and we all do, kiddo; nobody's perfect, not even your old man—admit it, learn from it, move on. Be a man about it._

"Did you get that?" Dad asked. "Did you _get_ it, Dean? If you do something stupid _in real life,_ there are bound to be repercussions."

* * *

From that day forward, from the day they set and casted his arm, he was a terrible patient. Because injury and illness meant that in real life he'd done something stupid, just as Dad had said. And if he did something stupid, he deserved to bear the pain.

Dad didn't say _that_. Dean just thought it.

_We pay for our sins_.

Never again did an always-growing Sammy rub blisters on his feet because his shoes were too small. Dean wouldn't allow it. Dean found him, or stole for him, shoes. Shoes that fit. Even that one summer when, while no one was paying attention, Little Sammy Winchester shot up to overtop brother _and_ father.

That memory made Dean smile. Oh, but he'd been pissed! He could still play the big brother card in seniority, but never again in size.

Superman. Nah. Superman was weakened by kryptonite. Wolverine, now . . . _Wolverine_ was impervious. Wolverine always healed.

Wolverine didn't wear wussy red leather boots. Wolverine wore workboots.

So did Dean Winchester.

"Just bruises," Dean observed. "No bites back here, no clawmarks. Guess you took all the damage on your front side, like a damn _hee_-ro. Okay, let me get the holy water, first aid kit for that arm, then you get to drop your drawers. Full Monty on the exam, kid."

Sam was incredulous. "_Seriously_, Dean? Look, I'll check myself out in the shower."

Dean pulled up the supply duffel, dumped it on the bed, unzipped, dug into it. "I'll let you keep your boxers on."

"So, what, is that a half Monty? Or a quarter?" Sam toed off his slip-on boots. "Look, I'm showering first. The water'll wash everything clean. Then we treat. I'm covered in blood and goo and I _stink_, Dean. Ten minutes, then you can have your way with me." He paused. "Um, let me rephrase that."

Dean turned sharply, reached to grab his brother, but Sam slipped the hand, took two strides into the bathroom, closed and locked the door.

"Sammy!" He moved in, heard Sam shucking jeans, turning on the shower. "I'll pick this lock!"

"I'll dunk your head in the toilet—_before_ I flush it!"

"I'll put Nair in your boxers!"

After a pause, Sam called, "Oh, man, that is just too ugly to contemplate!"

"Then get your ass back out here!"

"My ass is in the shower, Dean! _Ten minutes!"_

He paced, because that's what he did when Sam wasn't where Dean wanted him to be. Upon the table he spread a clean towel, then lined up the flask of holy water, antiseptic ointment, gauze, tape, spongy Vetrap in place of old-style Ace bandage—a blinding fuschia color, since it had been on sale—plus bottles of oral antibiotics, ibuprophen, and Tylenol. Experience had taught them that for inflammation, for pain short of the need for opioids, downing both analgesics simultaneously was most effective.

Sam was out in nine minutes on the dot, wet hair slicked back, towel snugged around his hips. He raised one delaying index finger in the air, dug fresh boxers out of his duffel, inspected them for any foreign substances akin to Nair, then pulled them on and hooked the damp towel over the doorknob.

Freaky-long, those legs, protruding prodigiously from the boxers. "Scrapes," Sam said firmly. "I looked. The arm's the worst of it." He plopped down in the chair tucked under the table, stretched out his forearm and settled it on the towel. "Okay, do your worst. Well, so to speak. Don't take it literally, dude."

Dean pulled the other chair close, perched on it, took a good, close look at the bite wound. It was nasty, but he'd seen worse. With a glance of apology at his brother's tense face, he uncapped and poured holy water into the punctures and torn flesh.

Sam sucked in a hissing breath, screwed up his face, expelled air on a strangled, breathy blurt of pain. Dean blotted the arm dry, swabbed it thoroughly with antiseptic, bandaged it, ran a few passes of gauze around the arm, used the roll of stretchy, tacky Vetrap as armor against the world. Then he placed a glass of water close, pushed the pill bottles forward.

"Dude, you know the drill."

Sam tossed him a brief disgruntled scowl, but obligingly swallowed analgesics and antibiotics.

"And when's the last time you had a tetanus shot?"

"Last year, when that spirit shoved a broken hatchet handle into my side."

Dean grunted. "Yeah. I remember that. Sucked." He recapped the holy water, pushed up from the chair. "Okay, my turn in the shower. Then we go out for breakfast."

Sam flexed his wrist, winced. "I was thinking I might go to _bed_, Dean. You know, like, catch some actual sleep."

Dean unlaced his boots, loosened them, shook them off, then grabbed tee, jeans, boxers out of his duffel. "You'll sleep better on a full belly."

"If I'm asleep, I won't know if my belly's full or empty."

"If that mother's growling because it's empty, _I_ won't be able to sleep."

"God," Sam sighed, "somehow it always comes back to Dean Winchester."

"Because I'm oldest," Dean said. "And because I'm, well, _me_." He paused at the threshold of the bathroom, turned briefly toward his brother and flashed him a wide grin. "'Don't hate me because I'm beautiful.'"

"Jesus," Sam muttered.

Dean, cackling, closed the door.

* * *

_**TBC**_


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two**

* * *

In the bathroom, no longer tasked with tending Sam, Dean allowed himself to do a personal triage. Yeah, he hurt. He'd taken a direct hit from the black dog, like a massive punch to the chest before twisting away, before ending up face-down with all that weight and power on top of him. He remembered flailing and kicking, trying to unbalance the animal. Twisting himself into a human pretzel.

He stripped out of jacket, overshirt, tee. Ran a hand over his chest as he peered into the mirror. He was so fair-skinned that he was certain he'd have vivid bruises pop up momentarily even if he couldn't see any at present. He'd always found it unfair that Sam inherited their father's natural tan while he was all his mother: fair skin, lighter hair, lighter eyes . . . it all meant he burned more easily in the sun, and their life was not always conducive to slathering on the sunscreen or donning dark glasses, even a hat.

A glance at his back in the mirror displayed no injuries. Well, a scuff there, over one scapula. He could live with that. Next he stripped off socks, dropped jeans, boxers. Okay, a few more scuffs. A bright line of pink across one thigh, like the casual drag of a canid toenail. He twisted this way and that, did what he could to examine himself limb to limb, and in the mirror. Maybe once he was out of the shower he'd have Sam take a look, too. Just in case. But other than encroaching muscle soreness, the usual wear-and-tear after an in-your-face meet with the supernatural, he felt fine. No bites, no punctures, no claw stripes beyond the one on his thigh, and that was nothing. On Sam it would barely show. He'd be _sore_ as hell, but that was par for the course.

He cranked on the water, watched the steam build, stepped in behind the curtain with a blissful smile.

Hot shower. Absolute cure-all. Good for what ails ya.

* * *

Sam was as good as his word. Good as his wish, his intent. When Dean made his wincing way out of the bathroom, albeit feeling a little looser because of hot water, plus refreshed in jeans and a tee that did not reek of black dog, he found his brother utterly uninterested in anything approaching breakfast.

Sam was rolled up in the sheet and still wore, as far as Dean could tell, boxers and nothing else.

Well. That was okay. At least he was clean, and no longer stunk up the joint.

Dean's stomach complained. Yeah, he could eat. He might be every bit as beaten up as Sam—well, scratch that; he was bruised and scuffed, nothing more—but he hadn't been bitten or clawed. And he was hungry.

Sleep was—well, sleep was a possibility. But unlike his younger brother, who had no appreciation for the delicious appeal of fatty, cholesterol-laden junk food, Dean was not usually happy going to sleep on an empty stomach. In fact, even if he did fall asleep, he usually woke up in the wee smalls of the morning feeling like a black dog was gnawing on his gut.

Well . . . scratch _that_. From experience mere hours before, he knew that was not a desirable analogy.

Ugh. Even with joints and muscles loosened by hot water, he was stiff and creaky. He'd put everything he had into bending back the black dog's head, into baring its throat, into killing the sucker. Dean knew he was strong, stronger than most men, but he also expended more energy and effort than weekend warriors. Reserves were to be depended on at need, to come through in a pinch—but when used up, when spilled out, the body demanded a reboot.

_Gettin' old, Winchester._

On the cusp of thirty. In dog years, that made him . . . two-hundred-and-ten.

Hunter years? He was a freakin' Egyptian mummy.

Food. Bed. Food . . . bed.

"Hey. Sammy." Nothing. "Hey Sam." Pause. "Do you want anything to eat?"

Sam, encased in cheap white cotton like a hotdog in a bun, faced mooshed into a bleach-scented pillow, slept on with no indication of consciousness.

It was early in the morning, well before lunch. Pizza restaurants would not be open. And fast food joints did not deliver. He could walk to the Golden Arches next door to the motel, clean out their supply of breakfast sandwiches—damn, but he loved those stupid McEgghead Muffin things—and grab something for Sam, too. He'd have to check the menu for what might survive in the air longer than twenty minutes without instantly attracting E. coli, though; their room lacked a microwave, and Sam wasn't particularly high on cold, congealed food.

Salad for breakfast?

An involuntary shudder ran down Dean's flesh.

He was dressed in clean clothes. Dean laid down salt lines at windows, the door, caught up room key and wallet—his jacket was too blood-stained—and headed out.

* * *

**He remembered.**

The Impala, despite Sam's driving her through the front of a _house_, had survived her up-close-and-personal with a door and a wall and furniture, and obligingly, if one-eyed, carried them through the darkness from Jericho to Palo Alto. Sam had bitched about his chest hurting from where the ghost of Constance Welch, the Woman in White, had nearly ripped out his heart, and Dean, annoyed that their brief partnership was at an end, eventually told him to shut the hell up, that he was lucky to be alive to talk about it and should just be quiet and appreciate that he still sucked up oxygen others might better appreciate.

Whereupon Sam, equally annoyed, had reminded him again that shooting bullets—real bullets, not salt rounds—at a ghost accomplished nothing.

Whereupon Dean reminded Sam that it had served to distract the ghost long enough that they could concoct a plan.

_'__They?'_ Sam asked with exquisite intonation, then pointed out that no, Dean just stood there uselessly with an equally useless empty gun while _Sam_ drove Constance into the house, where the ghosts of her murdered children took her home for good.

Yeah. He'd nearly gotten Sam killed. Someone else might say he was four years removed from protecting his baby brother, a brother who had somehow become a _man_ while away at Stanford—how the hell had that happened?—but seriously? Sure, he'd boosted a car and got to the Welch property just after Sam and the Impala did, but shooting normal rounds into a ghost?

Dad would kill him.

He knew better.

But it was _Sam_, all sprawled out against the seat back while a ghost dug into his chest. Shooting her had felt right.

_If_ _you don't get it right the first time, next time may be too late._

It had nearly been too late for Sam. In fact, Dean didn't truly know if his actions had done anything at all to assist his brother. It was Sam who figured out Constance Welch needed to go home, needed to be _forced_ to go home, where justice awaited.

And so as they drove away through the night, as Dean knew full well he ferried his brother back to his apple pie life, to a world Dean simply couldn't share, couldn't acknowledge because he knew himself _unworthy_ . . . well, he knew, too, that his life was to be exactly what it had been for several years. Fitful contact with Dad, hunting mostly on his own, feeling naked every day. Rarely John Winchester. No Sam at all.

Without them, what the hell was he?

Not _nothing_. He knew he wasn't _nothing_. He knew he had value of some sort. He got the job done.

He remembered. He'd said, _confessed,_ as he only rarely did: 'I can't do this alone.'

And Sam had answered, had asserted with utter faith, "Yes you can."

In that instant it had all come home to Dean with far more impact, far more truth, than he wished to acknowledge. And he'd said it, because he had to, "Yeah, well, I don't want to."

_We pay for our sins._

His sin, he very much felt, was allowing Sam to walk out of the house that night when he left for Stanford; was not bracing Dad; was not stopping them dead in their tracks to make them _listen_ to one another. To make them listen to him.

By the time he knew what he should do, Sam was gone, Dad was on his way to being drunk, and Dean was . . . Dean was just _lost_.

_It's your job, son. Look after your baby brother. Look after Sammy. You do nothing else in this world, you look after your brother_.

But Sam, at eighteen, declared his independence. Declared his emancipation. No one, he'd said, would _look after_ him again. He was his own man. And that man wasn't a hunter.

Dean dragged him away from Stanford. Dean drove him _back_ to Stanford. Twenty-two years before, he'd carried him out of a burning home. Now he did again. Where a second woman, burning, was pinned to the ceiling.

Would it have happened had Dean not talked Sam into leaving Stanford that post-Halloween night? Would the demon have left them alone? Would Jess have survived?

Questions he could not ask Sam. He should have asked Azazel, the Yellow-Eyed Demon. But all he could think of at the time, all he could do, was shoot the son of a bitch.

But maybe . . . maybe Azazel could have answered a question or two.

_Demons lie_.

* * *

He didn't clean out the entire supply of McEggheads because he couldn't stop thinking about Sam. After downing four in the restaurant as he pored over the local newspaper and sucked down coffee for a couple of hours, plus a stack of the little flat hash brown shoe soles, Dean ordered food to go, more coffee, and walked back to the motel on the lot next door. He thought it probably was a racket, how certain dining establishments and motels set up shop next to one another. As he crossed parking lot, he wondered if kickbacks were going on. Or if maybe one guy owned both. Or if owners were in collusion.

_Jesus, Winchester, you trust anything in this world to be what it's supposed to be, innocent and aboveboard?_

Well, probably not. He'd seen too damn much.

Then again, that was the supernatural. Not the world inhabited by the innocents, by the mundanes.

For nearly four years, Sam had been a mundane. He inhabited the normal world, a jigsaw of college classes, assignments, exams . . . of a bright, beautiful young woman who was killed because _she got in the way_ of a demon's agenda.

Just like Mom.

Their lives were _so screwed_.

Dean unlocked the door, pushed in, immediately noted that the saltline was unbroken. Noted, too, that Sam was up, was at the table, had peeled off the Vetrap, gauze wrap, bandage, and was dosing the bared bite wound with antibiotic ointment.

Dean's heart thumped hard as he kicked the door closed. "It's worse?"

Sam carefully fingered ointment into the wound. "No. No, not _worse_ . . . but it woke me up, and I just want to be careful."

"Don't approve of my doctoring, huh?" Dean set down bags, coffee. "Let me look."

"I've got it," Sam said crisply. "Dean—really. _I've got it_. I can take a temperature, triage an injury, treat what hurts . . . honestly, dude, I know what I'm doing. Don't you trust me to look after _you?_"

"Well, yeah, but—"

"Then _leave me alone_, man! I'm treating this, I'll wrap it, I'll take the pills . . . I'll do everything for it that you would tell me to. I'm not an idiot."

Sam-as-patient was a doctor's dream, but not always his brother's.

Dean hovered. He didn't know what else to do. He watched as Sam dabbed antibiotic ointment into the bite wound, how he covered and taped it, how he wrapped it in gauze; how he wound it, too, in the brilliant fuschia Vetrap.

"Sammy—"

"I've _got it_, Dean. Jesus, sit down. Go somewhere. Go somewhere _else_."

"I just came from 'somewhere else.'"

Sam's face was scrunched as he counted out tablets from multiple bottles. "Then go _back_ there, would you?"

Dean sighed. "Nah. No jukebox." He paced away, paced back. "You should have let me take a look."

Sam pointed. "Go. Sit. Sit there. On the bed. Watch TV. Watch _porn_; I don't care! Do something other than mother-hen me. Jesus, Dean, let it go." Then Sam looked up and a smile slowly blossomed. "Hey. Let's take a look at _you_."

Dean froze. "Me?"

"You're the only 'you' in here."

"I'm fine."

"Full Monty, dude."

"That was then, this is now," Dean stated. "Not gonna happen."

"So germs don't dare cross the Dean Winchester frontier?"

"Hey, _I'm_ not the one who got bitten, remember?"

Sam twitched eyebrows at him. "Seriously? I don't remember that we triaged you at all."

"I did it. In the shower."

"So, okay that you triage yourself, but I can't triage _my_self? That's a double standard, Dean."

"Is not."

"Is so."

"No. It's Winchester Rules, Sammy. Since I'm the oldest, they're _my_ rules."

Sam glowered at him. Then his eyes moved to the bag. Eyebrows rose. "You brought food?"

Dean smiled happily. "_Edible_ food, Sammy."

Sam looked at him. "Based on what you consider food, I'm not sure you know the difference."

"Sammy, Sammy . . . Fruit and Maple Oatmeal, Fruit and Yogurt Parfait. And coffee. When have I never looked after your best interests?"

After a very quiet moment in which all kinds of thoughts crossed Sam's face, he eventually said, "You always look after my best interests."

Dean ignored the emo, opted for unadulterated fact. "Damn straight." Then he pulled from beneath his arm the folded newspaper, snapped it out with a flourish. "I may have found us a case."

* * *

It did not go as planned. Well, they never truly went in with a foolproof plan, because the supernatural made its own rules, but they were accustomed to certain _expectations_.

Which probably was stupid, but after years of dealing with the ghosties and the ghoulies and things that went bump in the night—not to mention demons—they kind of, sort of, knew what to expect.

Most of the time.

But not always.

Dean hated it when he lost his weapon. Shotgun, handgun, knife—didn't matter. If he lost it . . . well, so, too, was the advantage lost.

But when a spirit missing half of its head appeared right in front of you, so close that a very cold incorporeal nose touched a warm and living Winchester nose, well, okay . . . one was not always perfectly prepared to withstand such intimacies. Even from a woman.

She picked him up, shook him hard like a terrier with a rat, and flung him down the stairs.

As he tumbled down them, as he bounced off risers, tried to tuck limbs in close so they did not jeopardize themselves against wall and banister, and as his head struck stair edges repeatedly on his way down, he realized that it didn't matter what plans they made, or didn't, because the supernatural did not play fair. Was unpredictable.

Hunters, now . . . hunters were predictable. Hunters tracked and destroyed the supernatural.

Maybe, Dean reflected, as gravity sucked his body into a heap of indecision at the bottom of the stairs, the supernatural had a massive, worldwide telephone system—or even an internet—that told them exactly what hunters would do. And what they should do in return.

_Pick him up. Hurl him down the stairs._

"Dean!"

He meant to say "Sam." He shaped the first letter, but then his brain went in a new direction. What he said was "Son of a bitch."

* * *

"Dean. Dean. Hey. _Dean._"

"Whut?"

"Dean."

"Whut?"

"You with me, dude? Dean?"

"Who's . . . who?"

"Okay. Not with me."

He felt himself shifted against something that gave a good impression of a human body. Probably _was_ a human body. He realized, with significant tardiness, that half of him lay sprawled across half of someone else, and that his head was _cradled_.

Oh. Dude. So not necessary.

"Herschel?" he asked.

The voice that responded ran up with impressive speed from baritone to something approaching soprano. "_'Herschel?'"_

Who the hell was Herschel?

"Dean . . . do you know who you are?"

Not Herschel. That's who he was.

Wasn't.

"Dean?"

Possibly _that's_ who he was. Since the guy kept asking. The guy whose lap he apparently was sprawled across.

Dude. Seriously?

"Dean, wake the hell up. I found the locket with the strand of hair, burned the sucker, the spirit's gone. Okay? It's over. Maybe once she was hot and therefore your type, but trust me, man, a shotgun full of buckshot was not kind to her. I'd burn her husband for doing her in, but he was buried right beside her. And he wasn't haunting this house." Pause. "Dean?"

He said, "Was she hot? I didn't have time to notice as she threw me down the stairs. But if I'm _going_ to be thrown down the stairs, I'd really rather it be by a hot chick."

Sam climbed out from under him, bent, grabbed an arm, heaved him into a sitting position. "That's it, dude. If you're talking about hot chicks, vacation is over."

He collapsed back against the wall. Managed to open his eyes, but not simultaneously. "Herschel?"

"No, Dean. I'm not Herschel. You're not Herschel. We don't, as far as I'm aware, know _anyone_ named Herschel."

"Maybe we should."

"I'll Google it. See if there are any Herschels in town." Sam paused. "You think you can get up now?"

"I can always get it up, Sammy. Need you ask?"

"Not get '_it'_ up, you moron . . . Jesus, that's TMI. Really TMI. Even from my brother. _Especially_ from my brother!"

"Jealous."

"Come on, dude, let's get you up—no, **_not going there _**_. . . _ uhh, let's put you on your feet, stuff you into the car, haul your ass back to the motel."

"'kay, Sammy. Whatever you say."

Sam huffed a laugh. "Why does it always take a _concussion_ to make you so accommodating?" He bent down to hook his hands into Dean's armpits, to slide him up the wall and pin him there until he balanced precariously upon his feet. "Can you walk?"

He attempted to peel both eyes open at the same time. Was briefly successful, then shut them again. "Been doin' it since I was, oh, 11-12 months."

"Then show me how."

"I did. I did that, Sammy. Mom and Dad showed me. I showed _you_."

Sam's tone, when he spoke after a long moment, was uneven. "Yeah. I guess you did. Okay, big bro, let's go. I promise to keep your baby safe on the way back."

Dean smiled widely. "She's a good girl."

His brother laughed. "She's the best."


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three**

* * *

After his violent waltz upon the stairs with a temperamental dance partner, Dean spent a miserable twenty-four hours wherein Sam insisted on waking him up every two hours. Day or night. It got to the point where Sam stood at a distance and threw a pillow at him, because he knew better than to get within reach.

Eventually Dean roused enough to take the analgesics his brother offered, began to see single images of items that were designed to be seen as single images, not doubled or tripled; and Sam let him sleep for longer periods. On the afternoon of Day 2 he woke up enough to be hungry, and Sam actually handed him a sandwich. It was grilled chicken as opposed to a burger, because Sam said it was healthier and less greasy. And would go down easier on a concussion-skewed belly.

He didn't buy that one bit. It was just Sam propaganda. Samaganda. But he ate the sandwich, drank the apple juice—_juice!—_and managed to tell Sam his name, age, and birthdate; where he'd gone to kindergarten; and also informed Sam that his little brother's first high school dance date had not been a good kisser, but was much improved by the time older brother got done instructing her in the art.

That was not well-received.

"Jail-bait!" Sam cried. "_Jail-bait_, Dean!"

"It was just a kiss, dude!" Then he reconsidered. "Though my kisses are pretty awesome, if I say so myself."

Sam grabbed a pillow and threw it at him.

* * *

**He remembered**.

"Sammy, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. It should have been me. I should have done it."

Sam's tone had been empty as they drove down the road, as a moonless night encased them in darkness. Words came slowly. His tone was dull. "I said I'd do it. I needed to do it."

"I shouldn't have let you."

"You don't always get to decide what I do and don't do."

"Sammy—"

"It needed to be done."

Why did life have to be so complicated? Why couldn't it be a simple matter of kissing a girl, even if she was your baby brother's high school dance date? Yeah, that was lame; that was really lame, it sucked out loud, and he was selfish to do it; and he knew if he ever told Sammy it would hurt him . . . but there was no accounting for stupid. Dad had said that.

_We pay for our sins_.

"It should have been me," he said.

"You don't always get to _do things for me_, Dean! I'm my own person. I'm not a kid anymore. The hard decisions aren't always yours, you know?"

"But _that_, Sam . . . that's not anything you should ever have had to do."

Sam's voice rose. "Since when do we get to pick and choose what we do? Dad taught us that. Life gets messy. It throws shit all over us. All we can do is take a freakin' shower when it's over."

He knew from experience. "Shower's a good place to cry."

Sam's breath was a huff of disbelief, of derision. "Oh, like _you_ cry in the shower? The great Dean Winchester? My brother the superhero? No, I don't _think_ so!"

Dean blinked hard. "Sam—"

"I slept with a monster, Dean."

"She was a woman, too. Before she was a monster. Jesus, Sammy—"

"It was my choice."

"It was _our_ choice. It's always our choice."

"Usually it's yours, Dean."

"Sam, I'm sorry—"

"Are you?"

"I wish it had been different."

"But it wasn't. It never is."

He held his tongue. There was so much, and so little to say. He didn't know how to fill the silence, to ease the pain. To make his little brother understand that he was absolved of guilt, that he'd done what needed doing.

_I should have killed her. I should have done it. _

He'd let Sam do it.

In that moment, he'd known it was not a test for Sam, nothing like a test, but an acceptance, an acknowledgment, that the life was hard, considerably harder than Sam had ever understood, even when he hunted before he went to Stanford. Because never had Sam been faced with such a choice. Prior to this, it was all black and white, all good and evil. You killed the monsters. You never, ever questioned. If you did, it would eat you up inside.

This was chowing down on Sam one bite at a time.

"You fell fast and hard, Sammy, and that's okay."

Sam stared out the windshield. "Yeah."

His baby brother did not give his heart lightly. Jessica Moore might even have been Sam's first woman, though Dean had never asked; _would_ never ask, because his brother was private in such things. Yeah, Dean was open about his sex life—_rude,_ _crude,_ _lewd __and lascivious_, that was Dean Winchester—but he wasn't blind to Sam's particular need to hold certain things close. Hell, he wasn't _always_ an unsympathetic bastard. And much as he loved to hassle his baby bro, he recognized boundaries. He pushed a lot of them, bulldozed through some; but the big ones, the deep ones, he never touched.

He wondered, now, that if they'd known then what they knew these days . . . would they have even considered killing her? Would they have tried to find a way to avoid it? Could they have saved her?

He suspected it was a question Sam asked himself, even these days. Especially these days.

"Sammy—I'm sorry."

"I know, Dean. I know."

Madison had been a werewolf. What more could they have done? What could _he_ have done?

Saved her. Maybe.

To save Sam the pain.

* * *

"Your head hurt?" Sam asked.

Brows jerked briefly in a fleeting frown. "I'm fine."

"You have that look."

He was mostly concentrating on driving, but Sam now had his attention. Sam's tangents could be bizarre, and he scented the promise of bizarrity—was 'bizarrity' a word? Sam would know—with this verbal gambit. "What, I have a I-was-tossed-down-a-flight-of-stairs-and-got-concussed look?"

"Well, yeah. There's that one. You also have a my-whole-freakin'-body-hurts-like-crap look, and the if-you-glance-at-me-sideways-I-might-fall-over look, and my personal favorite: the I'm-fine-I'm-a-freakin'-superhero-leave-me-the-hell-alone look. Which is what I saw when I told you not to try to fly off the garage when we were kids. You have a whole _encyclopedia_ of looks."

Dean considered that. "What's my look right now?"

"The I'm-going-to-kill-my-baby-brother-if-he-doesn't-shut-up look."

"Yeah, you betcha."

"But mostly it's all of the above."

"_All_ of them? Seriously?"

"You're going to start fracturing teeth if you clench your jaw any harder."

"I got concussed."

"So you shouldn't be driving."

"I'm fine."

"See?"

"I never actually _said_ I was a superhero."

"Oh, you said it all the time, Dean! That's all I ever heard! You were Superman, or Batman, and occasionally the Human Torch, because you thought it would be cool to fly _and_ to flame on. Probably we were lucky that you only wanted to be Superman that summer, because if you'd set yourself on fire and _then_ jumped off the garage roof, Dad would really have been pissed."

"At least I was never Wonder Woman."

"Wonder Woman was cool."

"But a _guy_ isn't supposed to want to be Wonder Woman!"

"I didn't want to _be_ her. I just thought she was cool. And you know damn well that if you'd really been Superman or Batman, you'd have tried to hit on her."

Dean rocked his head back and forth. "Well . . . yeah."

"Why don't we stop for coffee, and I'll take over."

"Nah. I'm fine—and that's _Dean Winchester_ fine, not superhero fine."

"Dean Winchester is more fine than Superman or Batman?"

"Dean Winchester is more fine even than . . . Wolverine."

"Why?"

"Because I have better hair than Hugh Jackman."

"You _so_ do not have better hair than Hugh Jackman. For one thing, his is longer than an inch."

"_Mine_ is longer than an inch."

"Where?"

Dean pulled up a strand right on top. "Here."

"Inch-and-a-quarter. Maybe. Because you haven't gotten it cut for a whole two freakin' weeks. It's about to stage a coup of your head. A veritable tsunami of hair."

"Jesus, Sam . . . you could _braid_ yours."

"You don't look like superhero right now, Dean. You look like a guy with a bad headache, and a guy whose whole freakin' body hurts, and a guy who might fall over sideways if I so much as glance at him."

"My whole freakin' body _does_ hurt, Sam! I got slammed by a black dog and thrown down a flight of stairs. One day apart."

"We could have stayed at the motel another day or two."

"I'm not falling over sideways if you glance at me, and I'm not letting you drive my car."

Sam said, "_My_ head hurts. _My_ body hurts. I feel like _I_ might fall over. I don't feel like a superhero at all, unless it's Superman with kryptonite hanging around his neck."

Dean glanced at him. "Your arm hurting?"

"Of _course_ my arm hurts, Dean! A freakin' black dog tried to chew it off!"

"Do you want to stop?"

"Holy Christ," Sam muttered, clasping his skull in both hands. "You'll stop if I have a _hangnail_, but you won't stop if _your_ head is barely hanging on by a thread."

Dean did not dignify that with an answer. Because he so _would_ stop if his head was barely hanging on by a thread. Otherwise, it would be hard to see the road, and his baby deserved better.

"Do you want to stop, Sammy?"

_"Yes!"_ his brother shouted.

"Jesus, Sam, keep it down. You're makin' my head hurt."

Between clenched teeth, Sam declared with excess precision, "I. Am. Going. To. Kill. You."

"Well, that'll stop the headache."

* * *

Dean ate half his burger, then quit on it. Fries were easier; he could chew them without discomfort. Apparently he'd whacked his jaw in the fall down the stairs.

Sam noticed, of course. Sam always noticed. "Head still hurts, huh?"

Dean shrugged. "I'll take some ibu when we get back out to the car."

"Why don't we just stop for the day . . . hit the sack early. We've got nowhere to be."

"This town has, like, one stoplight."

"And a motel. With beds and everything."

Dean shrugged again, felt the pull in the back of his neck. He massaged it briefly. "How's your arm?"

"Hurts." His brother never dodged such questions.

"Well, let me take a look at it when we get settled."

Sam nodded. "Okay."

"And we'll pick up a paper, and you can go online, check things out."

"We don't need another job right now, Dean. We can take a day, two."

"Your arm bothering you that much?"

Denial was in Sam's eyes as he opened his mouth, followed swiftly by calculation. He closed his mouth, opened it again.

Dean cut him off. "It's not a hangnail. Because I wouldn't stop for that, whatever you may think. Though they hurt like a bitch. But, yeah, when a black dog chows down on my baby sister, I'm willing to stop." He leaned close to the table. "Of course if she's just trying to _play_ me, that's a different story."

"Dude, I learned a long time ago that you're unplayable."

Dean brightened. "Really?"

"_Oh _yeah. Not worth my time." Sam contemplated his brother's unfinished meal. "You gonna eat the rest of those fries?"

Dean pushed the plate toward him. "Burger's yours, too."

"Nah." Sam flicked a glance at him, then went about finishing off the ketchup-drenched fries. But not before Dean saw the twitch of a dimple.

"You realize, Sam, it's not playing me if I _know_ you're playing me."

"If I were playing you, you'd never know it. I'm that good."

"You are not."

"I learned from the best."

Dean narrowed his eyes.

"You, numb-nuts."

"Let's leave the boys out of it." Dean swiped the last fry, downed it. "Of course if your arm's not really hurting, we'll just drive on. 'Cuz we can make a town that has _two_ motels. I'm pro-choice." He grabbed the check, climbed out of the booth. "Come on, Samantha. You've been using that arm all day with hardly even a wince. _Busss-_ted."

"Actually, it hurts like a son of a bitch, but I recently enrolled in the Dean Winchester School of Won't-Say-Shit-If-It-Kills-Me." Sam knew when to surrender the fight. "But you'll take the ibu?"

"Of course I'll take the ibu. I'm not a superhero." He paused. "Today. Give me a hot shower, and I'll be Superman tomorrow."

"I thought you were Wolverine."

"Give me a hot shower and a bed with Magic Fingers, and I'll be freakin' Wonder Woman."

* * *

They drove on another three hours and found a town that had _four_ motels, where they ordered pizza in, Dean downed more ibu, took a hot shower, donned a sleep tee and scrub bottoms, and unceasingly pestered his brother until Sam let _him_ examine and treat the bite wound. Which looked pretty nasty, and undoubtedly hurt more than Sam was letting on—maybe he really _was_ attending Dean's Won't-Say-Shit school these days—but did not appear to be infected. Good thing, that. Dog bites of any kind could be pretty bad; considerably worse when it was a supernatural canine.

"You always wanted a dog," Dean said idly as he applied the last of the Vetrap to his brother's forearm. "Man, I remember you _begging_ Dad for a puppy."

"And I remember him saying no, too. Every time."

"Well, we weren't in position to be dragging a dog out on hunts, Sam. It was tough enough dragging _you_ out on hunts. But at least you were housebroken." He pressed the tacky wrap to stick it to itself. "Most of the time."

"So the best I could do was make friends with dogs in the neighborhood, if we stayed anywhere long enough."

"Yeah, I remember that one dog. That goofy Bloodhound who sounded off every day at 5:00 a.m. Could wake the dead, that dog. 'member him, Sammy?"

"He was a nice dog."

"He gave you ringworm." Dean grinned. "And Dad had to _cut your hair_ so he could treat it."

Sam offered his patented bitchface, then smiled sweetly. "And what's _your_ excuse? A permanent case of ringworm?"

"No spirit ever grabbed me by the hair, Sammy, the way that one did to you last year."

"They don't have to. They seem to have no trouble just grabbing _all_ of you and hurling you down the stairs." He paused. "Herschel."

"Those little swimmer turtles are good pets."

Sam blinked at him in utter bafflement. "Dude, why are we talking about turtles?"

"They're pretty portable, and they don't give you ringworm."

"But they can give you salmonella. They stopped selling the littlest ones because kids were getting sick."

"Herschel did _not_ give me salmonella."

Sam stared at him. "_That's_ who Herschel is? You had a _turtle_?"

"I was three."

"You named your turtle 'Herschel'?"

"I was _three_."

"I don't remember a turtle."

"That's because Herschel went to Turtle Heaven before you were born."

"Poor Herschel."

"So Mom made me promise to look after my baby brother better than I looked after Herschel. And I'm still doing it. And you seem to be thriving in captivity." Dean packed away the first aid supplies, rose, stretched out his back. Felt and heard an array of knots pop. "Jesus," he grunted. "I feel like I'm ninety-two. Damn dog. Damn spirit."

"How's your headache?"

"Better."

"And your jaw? Your neck?" Sam raised a silencing hand. "Nuh-uh, don't give me stink-eye, Dean. You're hurting."

"I hurt all the time, Sam. Just like you. It's that kind of job. But if it makes you feel any better, I'm heading to bed."

"I'm sorry there's no Magic Fingers."

He stripped back the covers, climbed in. "Well, at least it's saving me from becoming a female superhero."

"I don't know, Dean—if any guy can pull off that skimpy little costume, it's you."

Dean grunted, making sure the Bowie was beneath the pillow. "Not enough hair. But _you_, now . . . "

He stretched out with care, tried a few positions, found one that didn't hurt his neck or jaw: flat on his back. He let his lids slide closed.

Sam said, "It's not Murgatroyd's fault he had ringworm."

Dean's eyes snapped open. "The dog's name was _Murgatroyd?_"

"Actually, I think it was DammitDogShutUp. But I called him Murgatroyd."

"_Why?_"

"I was four."

Dean contemplated that. "Murgatroyd the Bloodhound is worse than Herschel the Turtle."

"Is not."

"Is so."

"I thought you were going to sleep."

"Well, yeah." He shifted very carefully. Surreptitiously massaged his jaw. Then began slowly to relax. Really relax.

He released a long breath. Christ, but it felt good to lie still. To just _let go_.

He felt so much better he downgraded his age from ninety-two to eighty-six.

* * *

_A/N: The woman living behind me has a Bloodhound who, when he begins his morning choir practice, can be heard all over the freakin' neighborhood - though, most fortunately, it occurs later than five a.m. I don't know his name, but I'm pretty sure it's not Murgatroyd. Because who would name their dog Murgatroyd? (Well, except for Sam.)_


	4. Chapter 4

** Chapter Four**

* * *

Jerked out of sleep by a bolt of pain, Dean lurched upright in bed and clutched at his jaw. "Crap!" But the exclamation offered no release; in fact, it made his jaw hurt worse. "Jesus Christ!"

Sam turned on the light. "Dean?" His voice, not surprisingly, sounded sleepy. He blinked at his brother, frowning against illumination. "What's up?"

"I think I just broke a freakin' tooth!" Dean used his tongue to check. "Oh, man." He spat half a molar into his hand, stared at it in disbelief. _"Crap!"_

Now Sam was wide awake. "Man, I'm glad I didn't eat the rest of your burger!"

Dean gazed mournfully at the broken molar. "I don't think it was the burger. I think it was that freakin' spirit. Must of cracked the tooth going down the stairs. It just took a couple of days for it to break all the way." He felt at his jaw, massaged tight muscles. Fortunately the broken tooth did not involve the pulp, because it didn't hurt. Well, yet. It might if he, like, chewed actual food.

He got up and went into the bathroom, flipped on the light, dumped the tooth into the wastebasket. "I _am_ ninety-two. I'm losing my freakin' teeth!" He opened his mouth wide, peered into the mirror, attempted to see what remained of the molar portion that was still in place. But that made his jaw spasm and he shut his mouth with a click. "Holy crap." The back of his neck abruptly tightened, threatened to knot up. He winced, began to massage with stiffened fingers, digging firmly into taut muscle to stave off the cramp. "—dammit!"

Sam appeared behind him. "What do you need?"

"Cold pack," Dean replied tersely.

Sam disappeared, returned with a chemical ice pack. "It's activated. Here, bend your head down." As Dean complied, bracing himself against the sink, Sam pressed the pack against the rigid muscles of his neck.

But after a moment Dean reached up a hand, took over the duty. "I got it. Let go, Sammy. I need to walk. Get loose." And he did so, clamping the ice pack against his neck as he paced the room. He rolled his shoulders, stretched his neck from side to side, tried to loosen the tightness.

"What about another hot shower?"

"Ice and heat, yup." He grimaced. "Must have slept wrong."

Sam ran the shower, came back out. "All yours."

Dean handed him the cold pack, went in, swung the door closed. As he began to strip he felt a twinge in his abdominal muscles. "What _now_?" he muttered. Tee was off, dumped on the toilet lid. He shucked out of scrubs, added them to the pile, felt a quiver take him from head to toe. "Hot water, hot water, gimme lots of hot water . . ." He stepped into the shower, braced himself with one arm thrust against the wall. Closed his eyes as the flow of warmth sheeted down his body, began to slowly loosen the tension in neck and shoulders.

Relief came in increments, but come it did. By the time he shut off the shower and began to towel himself dry, he felt human again. Mostly. He donned tee and scrubs, exited the bathroom.

"You okay?" Sam asked.

"Tin man," he muttered. "I think I need oil."

"Well, this might be as good." Sam held out a bottle of water and a small yellow pill. "Flexeril. Just ten milligrams, but it'll help."

"Nah, I don't like muscle relaxants. They make me too, you know—" he flapped a hand, "—_relaxed_."

"Ya think?" Sam observed dryly. "Come on. Take this, and you'll be able to sleep without wondering if you'll wake up with cramps."

Dean sighed deeply. "Better than Midol, I guess."

* * *

As expected, the first thing Sam asked in the morning was how he felt.

Dean said, "Relaxed."

"How's the head?"

"Relaxed."

"And the—never mind. But better, yes?"

"Better, yes. Heat and cold worked nicely." He sat on the edge of his bed and rolled his head carefully, testing neck muscles. Relaxed. "Caffeine. I need caffeine."

"Diner down the street. You want first shower?"

Dean picked up the TV remote. It was 8 a.m. on the nose. "No, I think the one I took at four in the morning pretty much covered it. Have at it. I'm gonna check the local news."

When his brother came out of the bathroom on a waft of steam, Dean, now dressed, looked at him expectantly.

Sam stopped. "What?"

"I think we have a case."

"What is it?"

"Foreclosed house. The news said the family left, never went back. Reported cold spots, scratching in the walls, flickering lights, stuff being moved, the whole nine yards. They just walked out, said the bank could have it."

"Ghost?"

"That's what I'm thinkin.'"

"Do we have any candidates?"

"Not yet. I did some surfing on the laptop while you were in the shower, but haven't tracked anything down yet."

"Okay." Sam picked up the computer. "I'll take it with us, see if I can find anything while we eat." He eyed his brother. "You really want to do this after last night?"

"I broke a _tooth_, Sam, not my freakin' skull! But if it makes you feel better, I'll take more of the Flexible stuff tonight."

"Flexeril."

"Well, it made me feel _flexible_. All bendy and everything." He rose, took a brief interior inventory of his body, felt the soreness was completely normal and expected for a man jumped on by a black dog and thrown down a flight of stairs by a spirit. And he felt younger this morning. Around seventy-nine, maybe. "How's your arm?"

"Fine."

"Sam."

"Fine."

"Sam."

"I'm just channeling _you_."

_"Sam."_

"I'm a grown man, Dean."

"Only upon occasion."

"It's a dog bite. They hurt like hell. You know that."

Yes. He did. "I'm sorry I missed that shot, Sammy."

"I'm sorry I missed _my_ shot, because if I hadn't we'd both be in considerably better shape than we are. Now, can we go to breakfast?"

* * *

Sam came up with two ghost candidates, which Dean considered an embarrassment of riches and completely unnecessary. The original builder ran out of money while having his dream house constructed, couldn't face the shame, hanged himself in the living room. Four years later a woman at home alone was murdered during a robbery when three men broke into the same house.

"Could be either," Sam noted, finishing off his omelette. "The builder is a Tom McManus, and he might not be able to let go of his dream house. Stephanie Densmore may be understandably angry about being killed. Apparently the house has changed hands a ton of times times since construction was completed fifteen years ago, about eight months after McManus hanged himself. Stephanie Densmore was the third owner after the house was completed. Three owners in four years, which is a lot."

Dean used his fork to create artwork with pancake syrup on his plate. "If there were three owners in fours years after McManus's death, but _before_ Stephanie Densmore was killed, that's an argument for McManus being the spirit."

"It's fuzzy," Sam said. "Yeah, it could be the two owners after McManus, but prior to Densmore, sold for legitimate reasons. Then she gets killed, her spirit hangs around. So it really could be either one. The most recent family moved in from out of state, never heard about the deaths. Husband, wife, three kids—they couldn't move out fast enough."

"But why not try to sell it? Why just give it back to the bank?"

Sam's dimples flashed briefly. "The wife claims to be psychic. Says the spirits told them no one would ever buy it. They just got the hell out of Dodge."

Dean snickered in disbelief. "Psychic, huh?" He shook his head. "You'd think they'd burn it down for the insurance."

Sam achieved his long-suffering expression. "Dean, not everyone thinks of arson and fraud as a good backup plan."

"Credit rating, Sam. I mean, it's not something you and I ever have to worry about, living off the grid, but ordinary people do."

"I have a credit rating."

Dean's brows shot up. "_You_ have a credit rating?"

Sam nodded. "When I was going to school, I had a part-time job tutoring a few semesters, and I also worked in a bookstore for a while. Paychecks, Dean. I even have a real-deal credit card."

"I have credit cards."

"But this one is in my name. My real name. It's an actual card."

His breath ran short. Dean gripped the table with both hands. "Jesus, Sam . . . you're leaving a paper trail all over the country?"

"I haven't used it since I left Stanford. I just—have it."

"Well, get rid of it!"

"No."

"Why not?"

Sam didn't even flinch. "Because I was going to buy Jess's engagement ring with it."

Well, _that_ let all the air out of Dean's righteous indignation. After a moment he sighed, gazed at his brother. Kept the frustration out of his tone. "You _can't_ use it, Sam. Real card equals paper trail."

"Let me rewind," Sam said tightly. "And I'll replay it, too: '_I haven't used it since I left Stanford.' _That's three years ago. It's expired. I just have it, that's all."

Dean wanted badly to order his brother to destroy the card. It made him very nervous knowing a piece of ID with Sam's real name on it was readily available to anyone who had access to his wallet. Nothing they carried bore their real names.

Sam seemed to know exactly what he was thinking. "We have badges, IDs, fraudulent insurance cards, scammed credit cards, each with a different name on it. What the hell is one expired card with yet _another_ different name on it? Jesus, Dean—a little paranoid?"

Dean felt his jaw clenching, felt a tremor of incipient spasm. He loosened it with effort. "Okay. Fine." He really did comprehend the link to Jess, to his brother's former life. It just went against everything he'd ever been taught. "So, we got info on burial vs. cremation for this McManus guy and the woman?"

"Both buried here in town."

"Well, let's go check out the house, try to scare a spook out of the woodwork, see what there is to see." Dean began to slide out of the booth. "Otherwise, we'll just have to dig up both graves tonight and cover all the bases."

Sam's tone was startled. "Aren't you going to finish your pancakes? I think you ate maybe three bites."

"Nah. You ready?"

Sam levered long limbs out of the booth. "And why did you order pancakes, anyway? You don't like them."

Dean dropped a few singles on the table to cover the tip. "Easier to swallow."

"Easier to—oh. Your tooth. Do we need to track down a dentist?"

"About as much as we need to track down a proctologist. Which means: ain't gonna happen. Let's go, Sam."

* * *

On a quiet reconnaissance run, it was discovered that Tom McManus's dream house, which had witnessed his suicide by hanging as well as the murder of Stephanie Densmore a few years later, was situated on a three-acre parcel surrounded by trees. This meant that it was not positioned cheek-by-jowl with other suburban houses, but offered some semblence of privacy.

"Go, trees," Dean murmured approvingly, slowly taking the Impala up the gravel drive.

"You really want to do this in broad daylight?" Sam demanded. "I thought we were just driving by, that we'd wait until tonight to check it out."

"Tonight's the cemetery." Dean pulled up behind the house, where the Impala was not visible to passers-by. One would have to come _to_ the house to discover both car and Winchesters. "Let's check out the house now. Just a sweep, Sam. If the EMF meter picks up nothing, well, we may have to rethink."

"And prove the psychic wife wrong, then, huh?"

Dean climbed out of the car, checked the connections on the EMF meter. "Plenty of stories about haunted houses are crap, Sam. _Most_ stories about haunted houses are crap. It wouldn't be the first time a suggestible person got carried away. I'm not sayin' she's full of it, but . . . well . . . she might be _misled_."

"In defense of the other half of the gender pool, I am moved to ask if this has anything to do with the fact she's a woman?"

Dean shot him a frowning glance as he turned toward the house. "Say what?"

"Women are more often believed to be '_misled,' _to use your word, than men."

Dean said, "Being '_misled'_ is not gender-specific."

"Because in the Victorian era, it was believed that women were almost all uniformly sick. Melancholia, sexual frustration, all kinds of stuff."

"Sam! Why are we even discussing this? We're on a _ghost hunt!" _

"Well, you kind of dissed the wife for claiming to be psychic. "

"How many psychics do you know—" And he cut that off abruptly, swiping a belaying hand through the air in a wild sweep. "Don't answer that. Just—let it go, Sam. Listen, if the wife sensed something wrong in the house, and we find EMF indications, I'll buy into whatever she's selling."

"Sigmund Freud did a vast disservice to women, Dean, ascribing all kinds of sexual dysfunction to—"

_"Sammyyyy!"_

But his brother was snickering, and Dean knew all of it had been for effect. Dammit. Samantha was getting better at winding him up.

* * *

Sam stood watch while Dean picked the lock on the back door. With the tree barrier surrounding the place Dean didn't figure they were at risk for discovery, but watchfulness was something John Winchester had drilled into them. He and Sam let themselves quietly into the house, closed the door again.

It was a luxury to examine a house during the day. Made it a lot easier, instead of creeping around with flashlights, which always made illegal nighttime visits _look_ like illegal nighttime visits.

Sam held a shotgun loaded with salt rounds, as did Dean. They'd also taken the time to load clips containing salt bullets into their handguns. They swept the kitchen, pantry, hall bath, ground floor bedroom. It was the living room that brought the first EMF squeals. They were fitful at best, but increased in volume and number of lights in the array as Dean approached the staircase to the second floor, _and_ when he walked by the door to the basement.

"Could just be dispersed residue," Sam observed.

"Could be two ghosts."

"How often does that happen?"

"Almost never. But that doesn't _mean_ never. And we need to be sure, because I don't want to be digging up _two_ graves if we only need to do one."

"Okay," Sam said, "I'll go upstairs, save you from the risk of being tossed down them."

"Sam."

"What?"

"When's the last time you saw a _basement_ without stairs?"

"Well, if you want me to go upstairs _and_ down to the basement, I can do that. Save the old man the effort."

Dean gifted Sam with the stink-eye scowl he clearly anticipated, tucked the EMF meter away in his jacket and yanked open the door to the basement staircase.

* * *

It took fifteen minutes. Almost exactly. In the basement, Dean saw the ghost of Stephanie Densmore materialize even as he heard Sam's shotgun go off from the second floor. It was, he decided later, a spectacular example of synchronized haunting. Because as Sam did whatever Sam was doing upstairs, Dean got grabbed around the throat and thrown against a wall. In midflight he did manage to fire the shotgun and hit Densmore's ghost, thus temporarily banishing her, _before_ he hit the wall, slid down it, and landed in a heap upon the floor, which was in and of itself pretty damn impressive. But then, he was nothing if not awesome.

With all this flying around he'd been doing of late, maybe it was time he found a superhero cape.

He did not immediately attempt to stand up, but permitted himself a few minutes to sort out that all of his limbs and his head remained attached to his body. And to issue a pitiful lamentation.

"What is it with the chicks?" he implored of thin air. "Why is it always the _chicks_ who knock the crap out of me? I'm not a bad guy. What's with the beat-up-Dean-Winchester agenda? Do all you ladies get on the ghost internet and schedule these smackdowns in advance? I'm beginning to get a complex."

The shout came from the first floor. "Dean!"

He sighed, reassembled limbs into an arrangement that would allow him to stand up, and made the transition from butt to feet. "Yeah, Sammy!" he called. "You okay?"

Sam arrived in the basement door. "It's McManus."

"It's Densmore."

"So, two holes to be dug."

Dean trudged up the stairs. "Do ghosts fall in love and have sex?"

Sam's brows twitched as he slid out of the doorway so his brother could enter the hallway. "It had never occurred to me to contemplate that possibility."

"Well, I'm just thinkin' it would be one way to pass the time. If you're, you know, dead. And hanging out in the same house." Dean twisted left, right, heard his spine pop. Then he massaged his jaw. "You know, real women—_living_ women—like me, Sammy. Pretty much all of them like me, because I have, you know, a gift. So why the hell do female spirits hate me so much?"

"It might have something to do with the fact you shoot them every chance you get, you dig up their bones, and you salt and burn them. Not exactly a great date-night, Dean."

"So, you're saying next time I should bring roses and candy?"

"Sure," Sam said. "You can try it tonight when you dig up Stephanie Densmore's grave." He followed Dean through the kitchen to the back door. " In the meantime, I have a question for you."

"What?"

"Why were you thinking about a pet turtle when you got tossed down those stairs the other day? About Herschel, I mean."

Dean opened the door. "I wasn't thinking about Herschel _when_ I got tossed down the stairs. I mean, who does that in the middle of an attack by a spirit? And I don't know why I thought about Herschel _after_ I got tossed down the stairs. I was, you know, concussed. "

Sam followed him out, closed and locked the door. "How's the head?"

"Attached."

"How's the jaw?"

"Attached."

"How's the—"

"_Everything's_ attached, Sam. _Everything's_ working. Enough with the questions, already."

"Because you have one of those looks."

Dean pulled keys from his pocket as they approached the Impala. "If we keep this up, I'll invent _the look_ that says I'm going to decapitate my baby brother." He unlocked the trunk, returned his shotgun to its assigned spot. "Now, can we go find info on where in the cemetery the graves are located?"

Sam placed his shotgun in the trunk, slammed down the lid. "I'll run by the cemetery while you get some rest."

Dean paused at the driver's side door. "Get some rest?"

"Crash for a while, Dean." Sam opened the noisy passenger door. "You could use it."

Dean yanked open his door, climbed into the car. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"You look," Sam said, "rode hard and put away wet."

Dean turned over the ignition. "Sam."

"Yeah?"

"You're too big—and too male—to make a convincing mother hen."

"I am not. I do, too. Because I learned it from you."

"Jesus," Dean muttered, and decided not to tell Sam that the ghost of Stephanie Densmore had flung him into the wall.

Even if he did pull off that amazing mid-air shot.

* * *

_A/N: Okay, next chapter things begin to go just a bit more south for our favorite oldest Winchester brother. But it'll be a day or two before I can post the next chapter, because I have to actually write the thing. (Details, details.) But soon, I promise. I have this amazing boss who allows me to write while I'm at work. Because, well, I'm self-employed, and I understand my SPN obsession. So look for Ch 5 Friday or Saturday._


	5. Chapter 5

** Chapter Five**

* * *

**He remembered. **

Mr. and Mrs. Jenkins had always been good to him. She gave him cookies and milk, he explained how golf worked. Even if the putter was pretty much as tall as Dean was. But today, he didn't really want to be with Mr. and Mrs. Jenkins. Everything had happened too fast. Dad had awakened him in the middle of the night, made a phone call, and Mr. Jenkins arrived, took Dean across the street to their own home. They'd put him to bed in the spare room, but he wasn't tired after being pulled from a sound sleep by his father. Dad hadn't sounded like Dad.

So he'd spent what felt like two weeks just waiting around, though Mrs. Jenkins explained it was really only about 24 hours, and then Dad showed up looking very tired, but very happy early on Tuesday morning when he was supposed to be at work.

"C'mon, Dean," he said. "Got somethin' to show you. Somethin' really special."

And so it was back across the street to home, where Dean demanded to see Mom. Dad took him to their bedroom and Mom was right there in the bed, leaning against the headboard. He remembered how she smiled. How _big_ was her smile, how bright were her eyes, and how she reached out her hand. "Dean, sweetie. Come here."

He started to run to her as he always did, but Dad caught him, held him back, advised him to _walk_, and to not leap into the bed or on top of Mom. "Slow down, kiddo. Your mother's tired."

So he walked to the edge of the bed, let Mom take his hand, and then she showed him the bundle snugged up in one elbow. "Remember how I told you we were going to bring home a baby brother or sister?"

Dean nodded, eyes on the wrapped bundle. It was moving.

"Well, it's a brother. His name is Sam. Sammy. And you, Dean—well, now you're a big brother. And your job will always be to look after Sammy, to keep him safe. Can you do that?"

Dad sat down on the edge of the bed. "Hey, Dean. I want you to listen to me. This means you are now a very special person. Do you understand? You were the first born. The oldest. You are Sammy's big brother. Your mother and I will raise him, but he'll always look to you. You'll always go first into whatever life brings us, and he'll trust you, and he'll know you are always there to make sure he's okay, that _everything's_ okay. No matter what happens. Because you're his _big_ brother, and there's nothing in the world that can end that. Nothing in the world that can ever harm him if you're there to keep him safe. Do you understand?"

Dean nodded, gazing upon the small, scrunched face with its barely-there dark fuzz of hair atop a fragile skull.

Mom smoothed a hand over Dean's lighter hair. "That's my brave boy. You are going to be the best big brother in the whole entire world, forever and ever. You're his special protector."

Dean studied Sammy. He frowned faintly. Then he looked at Dad. "What does it eat?"

* * *

Their options were twofold: Split up, and each dig a different grave; or work together and dig up one grave at a time in tandem. Working independently, depending on how quickly each accomplished the digging, the salt-and-burn, would probably take less time and result in a faster result . . . but the ghosts of McManus and Densmore had already proved capable of working together.

McManus &amp; Densmore vs. Winchester &amp; Winchester. WWE Tag-Team Smackdown.

Dean remembered how Stephanie Densmore had flung him against the wall. He had no idea if Tom McManus had made physical contact with his brother, but he wouldn't rule out that Sam was keeping his mouth shut about any such thing even as Dean kept _his_ mouth shut about his own ghost-on-human altercation.

At the trunk, in the darkness, pulling shovels, gasoline, and salt containers from the Impala, they turned to each other and said, as one: "Let's do this together."

Which pretty much told Dean that McManus had likely whaled on his brother, and Sam clearly suspected Densmore had been up-close-and-personal with Dean.

The latter was confirmed when Sam said, "I _thought_ you were moving like you hurt worse than before."

Dean shot him a quick grin. "You should have seen me put the bitch away, though. Cool shit, Sammy. They should put me in movies. Jason Bourne, James Bond—they got nothin' on me."

Sam shook his head. "Neither one of those guys has ever dug graves."

"Nope. They just put people in 'em."

As usual, they carried small camping lanterns with them, but the moon was nearly full and visibility was good. They went for McManus's grave first because he was male, and therefore bigger, so the goal was to take out the larger threat, should McManus's ghost put in an appearance. Dean did not mention that Stephanie Densmore's ghost had felt pretty much like a 350-lb NFL tackle when she grabbed him.

The whole plan, with unexpected swiftness, became—problematical. Since they weren't ever actually digging with permission on a salt-and-burn—how would you ask cemetery caretakers for approval to do what they did?—they'd trained themselves to be fast and efficient whenever possible. Sometimes bad weather intervened, or angry spirits did; and, now and then, they had to decamp at a run when an unexpected security guard showed up. Plus, digging up a grave was _never _comfortable. It called for intense physical labor, strong backs, hardened muscles, stamina, determination, and usually the knowledge that at any moment the noncorporeal remains might show up prepared to throw a temper tantrum and they'd have to leap from the grave and defend themselves.

But mostly it was the whole repetitious physical labor thing that got to them.

They were three feet down when Dean felt his back spasm. He huffed out all manner of impolite words and a vast array of rude noises intended to display his discomfort, and eventually he had to stop and work his way through a variety of positions in the search for just the right angle to offer relief from the cramping.

Sam straightened up, shovel in hand. "Seriously? I thought you said you were bendy."

Dean eventually stopped swearing. "Uhhhh. Urrgubhurr."

Since they were standing three feet apart within the glow of moon and lanterns, Sam could see pretty well. "Dude, you're sweating. You running a fever?"

Through gritted teeth, he said, "I've been digging up a grave."

Sam waved a hand. "Get out of the hole, Dean. I'll do this. You just hold the ground, make sure McManus doesn't show up to put a head-lock on me."

"Is that what he did?"

"Dude, the paper said he'd been a wrestler."

"Like The Rock? Cena?"

"I'm not a wrestling afficianado, Dean. I just shot the son of a bitch full of rock salt."

Shit, but he hurt. Still, he managed to find a position that allowed him to slowly test the muscles across back and abdomen without any of them abruptly going into vicious revolt. The choices seemed clear to him, and neither appealed: climb up out of a hole and surrender his job, or keep digging.

He had the feeling his back and abdomen would appreciate neither.

"I got this," he murmured, and bent slowly to place his shovel against the earth.

Sam was annoyed as he planted his shovel, stepped on it, flung repeated loads of earth out of the grave. "Dean, there's just no point—" And then he stopped short in mid-fling, said _"Sonofabitch!"_ in so perfect a mimicry of his brother that Dean felt a thrill of pride.

"Uh-huh." Dean nodded. "It's your arm, isn't it?"

What Sam said, as he cradled his arm, was not precisely English. Or Latin. It sounded like something between. Or possibly communication from outer space.

"This is really sad," Dean observed. "I mean, _really_, really sad. How old are you . . . twenty-five? Yeah. And I'm a whopping twenty-nine. But here we are wobbling around like ancient parakeets trying to cling to their perches."

After a moment Sam's breathing eased. "Parakeets? Did you have one of those, too? What was _its_ name?"

"No, no, never had a parakeet. I'm not sure Mom was convinced I was up to the task of looking after another pet after Herschel died. Of course, then they brought _you_ home, which was kind of like the ultimate pet . . . but at least I didn't have to feed or housebreak you. I just taught you how to chase the stick when I threw it. 'Fetch, Sammy,' I'd call, and you always did."

Sam was both astonished and appalled. "You threw a _stick_ for me to fetch?"

"Of course that was when you were crawling, so I didn't throw the stick all that far."

"You treated me like a _dog_?"

"Well, yeah. But at least I didn't name you Murgatroyd."

"Jesus," Sam blurted in disbelief. "How did I even _survive?_"

Dean changed the subject. "Okay, here's the plan. We really need to salt-and-burn Romeo and Juliet. Realtors are going to bring clients out to view the house, or the bank will, or people who saw the story on the news last night will sneak in to see if there really are ghosts, and we're going to end up with dead bodies. So, I will dig while you watch; and then you will dig while I watch, and in between we can cry like babies about various physical maladies, but still manage to get the job done."

"I'm in better shape than you are."

"Hey, why sugar-coat it? We're both stove up, Sammy. Maybe what we ought to do is lie down in this grave together and let them throw dirt on top of us. Then we can have a four-way with McManus and Densmore."

Sam screwed up his face. "Dude, that is just _gross_. How can you come up with these images?—oh, wait: you watch Casa Erotica. I forgot."

"Casa Erotica is very arty, Sam."

"Porn is never arty." Sam flexed his wrist with extreme care, gently rotated his bandaged forearm. "This is not broken, and, as you would say, it's too far from my heart to kill me. Get out of the grave and watch for trouble, Dean. No telling when—or if—McManus might show up, and he could bring his girlfriend."

"Ghost sex," Dean murmured. "Now _there's_ an idea for a porn flick."

Sam bent down over his shovel. "It's been done."

Dean shot up so fast his abdomen damn near seized. "You've _seen_ it? You? Ghost porn? Sammy Winchester has seen ghost porn?"

Sam's shovel bit into the earth. "I saw it in a video store. Wait . . . I mean, I saw the _DVD_ in the video store; I didn't see the movie. I had no interest in seeing the movie. I wasn't there for porn. I was there for a documentary."

"Yeah, that's a nice euphemism, Sammy-boy."

Sam straightened. "You actually know what 'euphemism' means?"

Dean shook his head as he bent and gingerly placed his shovel into grave dirt. "I know a whole lot of shit you've never even thought of, Sam. Perfectly good and valuable shit. It's just different from yours."

Sam stood very still, all motion arrested. "Dean—I didn't mean it like that."

"I know you didn't. Hey, you're the smart one. Book smart. I got no problem with that. I never did, Sam. It was _Dad_ who didn't understand that wanting a different life wasn't really a rejection of what he and I did. Nothing wrong with wanting something more. Something—_other_." He shrugged, felt the pull across shoulders, up into his neck and jaw. "You never knew him from _before_, Sammy. Before Mom died. Before old Yellow-Eyes made us his pet project. I was just a kid, but I remember. Hell, I remember the day they brought you home from the hospital. He was so damn proud he was fit to burst. I mean, I didn't know at the time that's what it was, but I did later." He huffed out a laugh. "Man, you should have seen him carrying you around. Mom practically had to pry you out of his arms so she could put you down for a nap."

Sam wasn't moving at all. Dean finally stopped his carefully calibrated digging and looked at him. In the glow of the lanterns, he saw the shine of tears in his brother's eyes.

_Oh Sammy, no . . . that's not what I meant to do._

He opened his mouth to say more, to diffuse the emotions of the moment, but then he saw the ghost of Tom McManus rise up from behind Sam and knew they were out of time.

They had left their saltguns beside the lanterns. Dean snatched at one. "Sammy, _duck_!"

Sammy ducked. Dean shot. McManus dissipated.

Sam, climbing back to his feet, said, "We need to get this sucker dug out of his casket and burned."

Dean winced as his brother applied himself to exactly that, digging frenziedly against the pain of the bite wound in his left arm. And Dean was betting, too, that Sam's chest was on fire. There'd been no terrible wounds there, but plenty of claw stripes and bruises, and Dean was certain his brother's muscles and flesh were protesting vividly.

Finally he said, "Okay, okay—my turn. You stand watch; I'll dig."

Sam was panting. "Dean, you can barely move without seizing up."

"Yes, but—oh, crap—" And he shot McManus again. "Sammy, take a break . . . even just five minutes . . . "

"Dean—"

"Okay, fine." Dean put down the saltgun, grabbed the other shovel, began to dig. There was no choice. Salt rounds would delay, but not stop McManus. The only answer was to burn his bones, and that required reaching the casket and opening up the sucker as soon as possible. It was not going to happen if they didn't force the issue.

"Dean, I'm not sure—"

"Dig, or shoot!" Dean gasped. "Nothing more. Dig, or shoot."

But the next spasm literally dropped him to the ground inside the grave. He writhed against it, tried desperately to find a position that would relieve the terrible cramping. Overhead, a shotgun blast sprayed salt particles that pattered down to sting the back of his neck.

He rolled, twisted, bent himself into entirely ungainly angles, trying desperately to find relief. He heard Sam's breathing run hard and loud as his brother put hands upon him.

"Can you get up?" Sam asked. "You can't stay down here—I need to dig."

Dean dragged himself upright, stood hunched, grabbed his fallen shovel. For the moment the worst of the spasm had passed. He dug. "Watch—" he gasped. "Watch—"

Sam's shotgun went off. He heard the crack, scrabble, and clicks as Sam broke the gun to insert fresh cartridges. He dug and dug, plunging the shovel down into dirt, stamping upon it, heaving earth skyward. They were five feet down, he judged.

Sam set aside the shotgun, grabbed his shovel. For long moments neither brother said anything, just dug deeply, heaved, dug again, flung dirt from the shovels.

Dean's torso spasmed again, yanking his spine into a frontward arch, as if his ribs would burst from his chest. His jaw was so tight he couldn't even speak, just peeled his lips back and emitted a long, noisy, hissing groan.

"—hold on . . ." Sam gasped. "Dean, you need to get out. You need to get out of the grave . . . I'm close to the coffin. Can you hold a gun? Can you shoot?"

Shoot? He couldn't even speak. His jaw was clamped closed in a massive spasm that took away control of his entire body.

"Dean, you need to get out!"

He tried. He tried. He put hands on the edge of the grave, attempted to boost himself up, to stab the toes of his boots into the vertical cliff he and Sam had dug; tried to pull, and climb, and lurch upward; clawed at the lip of the hole. It was five feet, no more, but with his muscles tied up so tightly he had no control. He slipped back down.

Then he felt Sam's hands grabbing at him, arms linking around his chest. Sam heaved, pushed, pressed him upward. Dean felt himself rising; he felt it, too, as Sam caught his leg, then his boot, and _shoved_ him up into the air.

Someone above grabbed him, pulled him from the grave. Inwardly Dean blessed him, thinking that even if it were a night watchman, all would be well. If he could just get his body to unknot; if he could just catch a full breath; if he could just make all the spasms release, then he would be able to think, to explain, to come up with a good story.

And then he realized that the person who held him, who dragged him up from the grave, wasn't even alive.

"Dean!"

A shotgun went off from very close by.

Even with his jaw clamped closed, he found the wherewithal to force words into the air. "_Son_ofabitch!" And then, realizing that might be a misunderstood, "Not you . . . Sammy, not you . . . "

Jesus . . . he was strung up so tightly feared all of his bones might break.

Sam was out of the grave. Dean heard him, felt him near by. Smelled gas, salt; the sharp, pungent odor of matches struck. Heard the momentary silence, and then the _whoosh_ of flame.

McManus's bones were burning. Dean lay on the ground beside the grave and felt the worst of the spasms begin to subside, the worst of the knots to untie themselves. It was slow, it was laborious, it was hit and miss, but as the bones burned within the grave so very close, so close he could feel the heat, his body began to come back to itself.

"Dean. Dean—can you hear me?"

He lay upon his back with limbs loose and sprawled, grateful for the posture. Grateful that he was no longer bowed nearly in half.

He couldn't speak. All he could do was make small sounds of relief. Of exhaustion. Of gratitude.

"Okay," Sam said, "let's get you out of here."

And it came into his mind that he had failed in his job. In his responsibility.

"It's okay," Sam said; and Dean didn't know if he was answering, or simply talking. "I'll get you out of here."


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter Six**

* * *

Sam drove, because Dean couldn't. Dean could barely hold himself upright upon the bench seat. Every inch of flesh felt like it had been stretched to the max. Muscles were rags. The hair on his arms _and _his head hurt.

"Hey," Sam said.

Dean was mostly slumped in the seat, right shoulder planted against the opening between door panel and seatback edge. His skull bumped against the rolled-up passenger window. He breathed slowly and carefully, not risking a repeat of the spasms that had wracked his body at the cemetery.

"I know this is a stupid question, but I'll ask it anyway. Because, you never know. The seas might run red and part one of these days." Sam paused. "Do you want to go to a doctor? Hospital?"

Dean couldn't open his mouth, but his lips formed the words behind his teeth. "Motel."

"Okay."

He pushed the words through the constriction of his jaw. "Shower. Hot."

"We can do that."

"Flexible pills."

"Flexeril. Yup, we can do _that_."

"'morrow . . . we go back to th' cemetery. Do Densmore."

"Dean, tomorrow you're going to be lying in bed and gazing at the ceiling. Or gazing at the inside of your eyeballs. Or gazing, if you want, at Casa Erotica. Densmore can wait, or else _I'll_ go . . . well, never mind."

"—your arm?"

"Hurts like a mother. I'll work on it after I get you to bed."

"Before."

"Nuh-uh."

"—infected."

"It's not. I'd know by now. _Hurts_, but it's healing. I promise."

"Black dog. Worse than Murgatroyds."

Sam's laugh was a gust of air. "But they don't give you ringworm."

Dean released a long sigh. "—I'm freakin' useless."

"Dude, pretty much the _last thing_ in the world you are is useless."

"_I'm_ s'posed t'go first. _I'm_ s'posed t'protect."

"And you do! Always! Every damn day!"

"—said . . . said it was my job."

"But not to the exclusion of everything else. Dean—I don't want you _giving up your life_ to protect me. That's not the way it's supposed to work. Yeah, we're backup for one another. But don't surrender _everything_ to protect me."

A tremor ran through Dean's body. His limp hands twitched between his legs. "Tol' me '—your job will always be to look after Sammy, to keep him safe.'"

"Yeah, well, Dad always put a lot on your shoulders."

"Mom."

Sam looked at him sharply. "That was Mom?"

"—prob'ly what ev'ry parent says . . . but look at what happen'd. You were so little . . . so helpless. –God, she loved you, S'mmy." His skull bounced against the window. "I 'member that. She went in . . . she went in to protect you. –was my job. _My_ job. And sh' died."

Sam's tone was horrified. "Dean, for God's sake—you can't blame _yourself_ for Mom's death! "

"—my job."

Sam swung the car to the right, off the blacktop onto gravel and dirt; pressed firmly on the brakes; threw the gearshift into Neutral, engaged the emergency brake. Then he caught Dean's left arm and hauled him upright against the seatback. His left hand wrapped itself around the right side of Dean's head, turning it, holding it. Making him meet his brother's eyes.

"Listen. To. Me. You had _nothing_ to do with Mom's death. You had _nothing_ to do with Azazel being in the nursery. You had _nothing_ to do with what happened. You were a kid, Dean! Maybe Mom and Dad did tell you to look after me, to protect me . . . that is probably what _every_ freakin' parent says to _every_ older sibling when a new baby comes home. But if you've been beating yourself up over this for twenty-five years—well, it has to stop. Just _stop_. For God's sake, Dean—you carried me out of a burning house! Yes, we lost Mom—but I'm here because of _you_. You did exactly what they told you to. You protected me."

Dean attempted a smile, could only manage a brief twitch of his lips. "No ex'pration date."

"What?"

"On lookin' aft'r li'l brothers."

Sam stared at him. Dean could hear traffic on the road beside the Impala. "When I was four . . . when _I _was four, Dean . . . what was I like?"

Dean's brows twitched. "Jus'—kid."

"Was I perfect?"

"—hell, no."

"Did I always follow orders to the letter?"

"No."

"Was I a soldier?"

"No . . . were a kid."

"Was I in charge of the fate of the entire world?"

"S'mmy—"

"_Neither were you_! Jesus, Dean—_you_ were a kid. A four-year-old kid. Dad did what needed to be done, said what needed to be said that night, and it saved me. It got me out of that house. But you were still _just a kid_."

Dean gazed at him from beneath heavy, half-mast lids. "My job then. My job now."

Sam's hand tightened against his head and neck. "It goes both ways, big bro. _Both_ ways. Got it?"

"Dude—" Dean said, and slid sideways again, let gravity take him away from his brother's hand to slump once more against the window.

After a moment Sam put the car back into gear, released the emergency brake. "Okay. Okay. Let's get you into a bed."

"—'gic Fingers," Dean mumbled.

"They don't have it," Sam said. "But if you want me to stand at the end of the bed and shake it for you, I'll do that."

Dean considered it. "Nah. You're a girl, but not a _girl_."

* * *

Hot shower. Ice pack for his jaw. This time twenty milligrams of muscle relaxant.

"We can go more," Sam said, "but let's see what this does. This isn't major stuff, Dean. It's not gonna knock you out."

Dean lay sprawled in bed. He felt like a sock puppet, arms and legs barely attached. But the ice pack had settled the spasm in the back of his neck and jaw, and the hot shower had eased the shredded ache in his torso. For a couple of minutes there he'd thought he might turn into a human puddle on the floor of the tub with the shower raining upon him, but he'd sucked it up and managed to stay upright, to turn off the water, to climb shakily out of the tub. The last thing he wanted was Sam to have to come in and hold him upright, to dress him in tee and scrub bottoms. There wasn't much Dean felt deserved dignity, in the grand scope of things, but nudity was not something he wanted to inflict upon his brother.

Inflict. Seriously? His brother should freakin' _worship_. Should acknowledge _excellence_.

Sam bent over him, holding water bottle and something clutched in one hand. "Ibu. Tylenol."

"Took pills," he managed.

"Those were to relax the spasms. These are for pain."

"—arm?"

"Arm's good. I cleaned it, dressed it when you were in the shower. It's ugly, but healing. I promise."

"Chest?"

"Well, I kind of look like Freddy Krueger _and_ Wolverine did a joint number on me—high-def Technicolor stripes—but it's okay. I'm good, Dean. Really."

Dean accepted the tablets Sam offered, took in water, though it hurt his jaw to open for it. He nearly choked, because his throat unaccountably did not want to swallow. "Wolverine would _so_ kick Krueger's ass."

"Yeah?"

His eyes drifted closed. "Hell, yeah. Th' man is indestruc'ble."

"Dean."

He opened his eyes. Noticed his brother was now perched upon the edge of his own bed, gazing at him with a look Dean knew all too well. Sam had trained himself out of resembling a Greek tragedy mask when he was worried about his brother, but he'd never learned how to shield his eyes.

Dean forestalled the question he knew was coming. He took exquisite care to shape the words even though his mouth didn't want to cooperate. "Sammy. I'm good. Look, that black dog beat th' hell out of me, and bein' thrown down stairs and concussed didn't help, even if I did remember good ol' Herschel. Then there was Densmore, and McManus. Yeah, I hurt. Not gonna lie. But I'm okay. It's just—attrition. Cost of doing business."

Sam drew in a shaky breath, let it go. "I just—I just hate seeing you so busted up."

Dean could appreciate that. It near broke his heart when Sammy was busted up. But admit it? Hell to the no. Against the code. "Hey, I took 'laxants, the ibu and Tyl'nol. Hot shower. Ice pack. Good t'go in the mornin'."

Sam licked his lips. "I'll order dinner in. You want pizza?"

Pizza—pretty much _anything_—would entail chewing. "Nah. Not hungry, jus' sleepy. Big breakfas' tom'rrow, 'kay?"

"Dean . . . "

"'s good, Sammy. Jus' . . . lemme float. Floatin' be so fine . . ."

And Sam said nothing, and he floated away.

* * *

He roused to extreme pain, and his brother talking to him.

"—gonna go wake up the manager, ask about a clinic. A hospital. _Some_thing. Dean—this isn't right."

And he realized his body was bowed again, chest thrust toward the ceiling as the back of his skull dug itself into the pillow. Every muscle in his body was tied up in excruciating knots.

He had the memory of shouting. Had he shouted?

He'd lost the powers of speech. Sound he could make; he heard himself. Heard the outrush of breath, the gut-deep gasps, the expulsion of outraged grunts that took the place of words, because he had almost no words. Mostly he had only pain, and the inarticulate expression thereof.

"—no—" he managed.

Cramps. Spasms. Nothing more, nothing less.

"Dean—"

He grasped language, clung to words. "—pills—" he slurred. "'lax'nts."

"Dean—"

"—jus' get th' freakin' pills—"

"But—"

"Jus' cramps. Spasms. Chris', Sammy_— do what I tell you!"_

And that worked. He had not used that tone, those words, for a long time. He shouted at his brother when danger hung over their heads, but this wasn't danger. It was just Sam being suspended between indecision and the desire to help. It wasn't always an easy decision, a clear-cut thing, especially in their line of work. One did not simply go to a doctor. One figured out what was going on independently of medical professionals, and one treated whatever it was.

What the hell else were hunters to do?

Sam came back with a pill and water. When Dean's attempt to leverage himself upward failed, Sam hooked one arm behind his brother's back and lifted.

Every muscle in his body not only stood at attention, but tied itself into excrutiating knots.

And then the spasm passed. It just—stopped.

Dean couldn't restrain the blurted, abbreviated exhalations of gratitude even if his jaw still didn't want to open all the way. "—oh God—oh God—thank you—" It was more than he wanted Sammy to know, but he couldn't help himself. Sweat ran off his body as his heart rate slowed. "Halle-freakin'-lujah."

Sam knelt on the floor beside the bed. "Hey . . . you okay?"

Dean mumbled, "—sing hosannahs to the highest . . ." And then he managed a faint smile, flopped out a hand in his brother's direction. "—okay, Sammy. 'm okay. Jus' . . . feelin' thankful."

"And apparently Biblical."

"—reg'lar Charlton Heston." He drew in a slow, careful breath, let it go. "I could . . . I could . . . "

"What?" Sam asked, when he didn't complete the thought.

"Beach in Hawaii. Fight attendant on the way, one of those lei girls at the airport, a rental car agent if she's hot, whoever checks us in at the hotel, providing _she's_ hot . . . waitress in the first bar I see . . ."

"Dean."

"Huh."

"You might be a little too—_relaxed_—to hit all those women."

"_Told_ you I don't like muscle relaxants. They mess me up."

"You gonna sleep now?"

"Sure. I could do that. I think. Yeah, pretty sure."

"Okay. Go to sleep."

"Sammy?"

"Yeah?"

"Mom let me name it, but it's possible Herschel was a Herschelette."

"Jesus, Dean!"

"Jus' sayin.' You know, hey, everyone makes mistakes."

* * *

_A/N: A shout-out and major thanks to all of you who've reviewed this along the way! Makes it all worth it!_


	7. Chapter 7

_A/N: If you mistakenly received a repeat of Ch 6, labled Ch 7, my apologies! I was updating and posted a chapter from a different story, then had to repost the correct chapter. So you may have received an alert for a chapter you've already read._

* * *

**Chapter Seven**

* * *

Sam insisted. Sam said he would leave his ass behind if he didn't do what he was told. Dean tried to object, to explain that he was needed, but Sam explained in very explicit terms that the only thing _needed_ was for him to sit in the car and wait. _Sam_ would dig the grave, _Sam_ would open the casket, _Sam_ would soak the bones in gasoline and salt, and _Sam_ would light the remains on fire.

"The only thing _Dean_ will do is sit in the car and be the hell quiet. Because I swear that if you set one foot outside the car, I will shove it back inside, get in myself, drive you the hell back here to the motel, and tie you to the bed. Got that?"

"C'mon, Sam, I think—"

"No! You don't get to _think_, either. No thinking. No talking. No walking. Just sit in the car and do nothing. Or I will _leave your ass here!"_

Sammy was apparently channeling his inner John Winchester. "Okay," Dean agreed, being a good little soldier.

Sam stood just inside the motel room door, duffel hooked over one shoulder. "'Okay?'"

"I'll be good. I promise."

Sam's expression verged on bitchface, but mostly it appeared that he was replaying his brother's words in his head and judging them for sincerity.

"I'll be _good_, Sam. I promise."

"You could get hurt," Sam said, noticably quieter.

"I know that. I get it. But you can't expect me to sit here at the motel while you're off digging up a grave by yourself and burning the bones of a spirit who already threw me into a basement wall."

"You didn't tell me that!"

Dean put one hand in the air, palm-out. "So help me God, I will sit in the car and be quiet."

When darkness fell, Sam drove them out to the cemetery, where they carefully checked for security guards in the wake of their visit the night before to salt and burn Tom McManus. Stephanie Densmore had been buried on the other side of the cemetery, and they found no indications that anyone was monitoring the place for suspicious activities.

Sam pulled over to the grass verge. He poked the air with a finger. "You stay here. You stay put. You just _sit_ here."

"Sitting here," Dean agreed.

Sam climbed out of the car, gathered up the duffel with supplies, marched himself off to Stephanie Densmore's grave approximately twenty yards away.

Sitting in the car was boring, but it did give Dean an eye-view of his brother's grave-digging technique. He thought if Sam adjusted his stance a little bit, perhaps placed the blade of the shovel a little differently, and put a little more back into it, he might find it a tad bit less physically taxing.

Dean considered that perhaps they ought to look into hot-wiring the backhoes used to dig the graves at larger cemeteries. It would certainly go faster and require less physical effort on their part of they let heavy machinery do the work. But it was quieter if they did the digging themselves; and otherwise, people might think the cemetery was haunted by a possessed backhoe.

Sam was about five feet down when Stephanie Densmore's spirit made an appearance. "You bitch," Dean said, then threw open the car door, sprinted twenty yards, grabbed Sam's salt gun and let go with one barrel.

Sam's head popped up from the hole as he straightened with a jerk. "Holy crap, Dean!"

"Dig faster!"

"You promised—"

"_Dig_, Sam!"

Sam dug. Dean shot Densmore with the second barrel. Then Sam crowbarred open the coffin, doused the remains liberally in salt and gasoline, climbed out of the grave and dropped a lighted match.

Stephanie Densmore, swooping at them from out of the darkness, dispersed into a permanent disappearance.

"Let's get the hell out of here," Dean said, and turned to jog back toward the car before his brother could latch onto any portion of his anatomy.

Sam caught up to him there, swinging the duffel into the back seat before climbing in behind the wheel. "Dean, you swore you'd be good."

Dean, already seated, yanked the passenger-side door closed. "I _did_ sit in the car, and I _was_ quiet, just like I said. I promised to be good and I _was_ good. I blasted that bitch twice and let you finish the job. If that's not 'good,' I don't know what is." He shot his scowling baby brother a grin. "I'll always be _good_, Sammy. You just took what I said to mean I'd do what you told me to."

"You son of a bitch."

"But I'm a freakin' _clever_ son of a bitch, Sammy." Dean nodded. "Okay, we're done here. Back to the barn. Drive on, Young Winchester. Drive on."

* * *

Post-morning shower, Dean walked out of the bathroom clad only in a towel because he'd neglected to bring fresh clothing in with him. He was digging through the duffel on his bed when Sam, turning from the TV, said sharply, "What the hell is _that?_"

Since he was staring fixedly at his brother's back, Dean figured he was somehow factored into the query. "What the hell is what?"

"Dean, what is this?" And then Sam stood behind him, hand on his naked back, touching his scapula.

"What are you doing?" Dean asked. "What are you looking at?—_ow_." He moved away from Sam, twisted his head to peer over his shoulder. He could not achieve the proper position to view his back even if he cranked his shoulder forward.

"Hold still. Let me see." Sam was behind him again, reaching out.

Dean shifted away once more. "Dude, lemme put some pants on first." He fished boxers out of his duffel, donned them, pulled on his jeans. He was still shirtless, but nonetheless felt like at least half of him was armored. "Okay. What are you talking about?"

Sam's fingers were on his left scapula. "You've got some kind of wound here. Can you feel it?"

"Now that you're poking at it, yeah. What kind of wound?"

"I don't know . . . " Sam's fingers were relatively gentle, but nonetheless intrusive. He pressed slightly, and Dean jumped, twitched his shoulder away from the touch. "What's this from?" Sam asked.

"I don't even know what it is. I didn't even know it existed. How am I supposed to know what it's _from?_"

"It's not new," Sam said. "This is days old. Look, I want you sit down in the chair. I need to clean this out."

Frowning, Dean returned to the bathroom, stood with his back to the mirror. It was still difficult to get a good look, but eventually he caught a glance of what Sam meant. The scuff he'd seen following their encounter with the black dog was no longer just a surface blemish, but was raised and dark. It wasn't large, perhaps the size of a silver dollar, but it was far more than it had been.

And now, of course, it hurt. Because he _knew_ about it.

"Come on," Sam called. "I've still got all the stuff out from dressing my arm."

Dean went into the room, flipped the chair around, sat with his back available to his brother. He was annoyed. He knew, too, that Sam was going to give him hell over this.

Sam pulled the other chair close, sat down. "Didn't you know you had this?"

"No."

"Didn't you feel this?"

"No."

Sam fingered the wound. "You're flinching."

"Hell yes, I'm flinching. You're poking at me."

"I'm examining, not poking. How could you not know this was here?"

"When you've been attacked by a black dog, thrown down the stairs, suffered a concussion, gotten hurled into a wall, then jumped by a ghost at a gravesite, you're a _little_ busy and may not happen to notice certain minor inconveniences."

"There's a lump here, Dean."

"Lump?"

"Hold still. I'm gonna wipe this down, take a closer look."

Dean rested forearms across the chairback. His jaw felt tight. He worked it from side to side, rolled his head as neck muscles twinged. "We got any more of those muscle relaxants?"

"I think we have two or three left. Why?" Then Sam began wiping down his scapula with wet square of gauze, and Dean forgot all about the muscle relaxant. "Okay, I think this is an abscess. I'm gonna open it up, drain it. You ready?"

He wasn't, but nodded. Because of course Dean Winchester was always ready. He glared across the room at the door with its information card attached on the inside, and gritted his teeth as Sam applied scalpel to shoulder blade.

"Yeah. Okay," Dean said, trying not to jerk his shoulder away.

"Hang on. There's something in here."

"Something _in_ there? In my shoulder?"

"Okay, I'm gonna use the tweezers."

"Well, hurry the hell up."

"Just a minute . . . _Jesus Christ!_ _Holy crap!"_

_ That _was alarming. "Stop crapping and taking the Lord's name in vain and tell me what the Goddamned hell you're talking about." He started to twist, to look back, but it hurt too much and an incipient spasm threatened his torso. "What is it?"

Sam rose, crossed around in front of the chair. Something was clenched in the tips of his fingers. "Here. It's the prize from inside the Crackerjack box." And he dropped it into Dean's palm.

He inspected it. "Holy crap."

"Yeah."

"It's a tooth."

"It's a _fang_, Dean."

A canine, wickedly curved. The tip was incredibly sharp. The root was jagged. "I'll be a son of a bitch."

"Looks like I wasn't the only one who was the black dog's chew toy. But how could you not feel it? Did you even bother to look? Did you self-triage at all?"

"I looked. I did look."

"And you missed this?"

"Well . . . that appears to be the case."

"There's a reason we triage _one another, _ Dean. This is an example."

"You were crashed out."

"You could have woken me up."

He hadn't wanted to. He'd wanted to let his beaten up baby brother sleep. But he _had_ looked, as best he could, and he'd seen nothing but a scuff.

Sam grabbed things from the table. "So, here's the plan." He rattled the pill bottle. "Antibiotics. Lots of 'em." He popped off the cap, tapped out four oblong tablets into Dean's palm, removed the tooth so that wasn't swallowed by mistake. "Take those. Here's water. Now, I'm going to put antiseptic in that wound and bandage it. I think it'll be okay. But from here on out, I'm checking this every day. Got it?"

"Yes, Dr. McNasty."

Sam clamped one very large hand over the top of his brother's skull. "You're just damn lucky black dogs don't get supernatural rabies." Then he let go.

Scowling, Dean rubbed at his head. Then with effort he opened a strangely reluctant mouth, worked the tablets onto his tongue, washed them down with water as Sam tended the wound.

Damn. He'd had a _fang_ in his shoulder.

Sam was muttering. Dean said, "What?"

"Dean Winchester School of Won't-Say-Shit-If-It-Kills-Me. One of these days, it might."

Dean smiled. "Not today."

* * *

Patched up, fully clothed, Dean wanted food. He said so to his brother. "Dude. Breakfast. Now." He opened the door, and the brilliant morning sunshine hit him like a nuclear blast. He staggered back into the room, tripped, went down hard.

"Dean, what . . . ?" Sam was next him, kneeling. He felt his brother's hand on his arm.

Every muscle in his body abruptly spasmed, stood up like taut cables, then tied themselves into indivisible knots. He couldn't even open his mouth to yell. All he could do, as his body arched impossibly off the floor, was emit one long, shuddering, breathy moan of unadulterated agony that came up hard from the depths of his cramping gut, was pushed out between clamped teeth.

"—wait—wait . . . Flexeril . . ." Sam left him, yanked open a duffel zipper, dug inside. "Just three—not enough . . . but better than nothing. "Okay, the sea is parting . . . we're going to a doctor." He knelt back at Dean's side, lifted his head, held two small pills against his lips. "Come on. Come on, Dean. Open your mouth."

He couldn't. He just _couldn't_.

Another shuddering moan found its way up his throat, but could not breech clamped teeth.

The door stood open, because Dean's booted feet prevented Sam from closing it. Even as Dean struggled against the floor, arched and shuddering, he heard a stranger's voice asking what was going on. Did they need help? Was it a seizure?

Sam said, "Go to the office. Ask the manager about a hospital, urgent care—_anything_! Dean—Dean, come on. Open your mouth. It's only three pills, but they'll help. They've got to."

Dean's lips peeled back. With tremendous effort, he parted his teeth slightly. Sam shoved the pills in, pressed the bottle against his lips and lifted his head.

He managed two swallows, then a spasm snapped his jaw closed again. He couldn't tell if he'd gotten the pills down.

He arched, arched again. Something deep in his back popped. He felt it go; felt the tweak, the snap.

The stranger was back. "Manager says the town's too small for a hospital, but there's a little clinic. Everyone goes an hour up the road for big stuff. He can call the paramedics from there."

"Hour's too long," Sam said. "We'll try the clinic. He tell you where?"

"Two blocks up, on the left. Next to the Dairy Queen."

Dean tried to speak. Tried to say his brother's name. All he could manage was the sibilant, the hiss of the "S."

One more spasm set legs to jerking, and then it faded. He was free of it all. Limbs collapsed against the carpet. Too soon for the relaxant to work, and too small a dosage, but _something_ had taken mercy on him.

At last, at last he could open his mouth. "Sam . . . Sammy—_Jesus—"_

"Can you get up? Dean? If you can get up, I'll put you in the car."

"You need help?" the stranger asked, still hovering in the open doorway.

Dean looked at him. Young guy. College age. Sleeve tattoos from wrist to elbows. Piercings decorated his mouth and nose.

"Yeah," Sam said. He dug into Dean's pocket, pulled out the keys. "There's a black Impala just outside. Can you unlock the doors?"

"That sweet ride's yours?"

"His," Sam answered, and dimples twitched as he looked down upon his brother. "Don't worry—he's just opening the doors."

At that moment, so exhausted he could barely even breathe, Dean didn't care if the guy _drove_ the Impala.

Well. Not true.

"Sammy . . ."

"Yeah?"

And Dean Winchester asked a question he had never allowed himself to ask in his entire life. "What's wrong with me?"

No dimples now, just worried Sam Winchester eyes. "I don't know, Dean. I just don't know."


	8. Chapter 8

** Chapter Eight**

* * *

The clinic doctor—a red-haired, blue-eyed guy with freckles, who, based on a photo, wore a kilt and played the bagpipes—was young enough that Dean wanted to refer to him as Doogie, or maybe Duncan McLeod (except there could be only one), but it was becoming harder and more painful to talk, so he said very little. In fact, Sam did most of the talking, except when the doctor asked questions directly of Dean, who could manage to nod or shake his head. He felt absolutely shredded after the bout of muscle spasms.

He detested doctors. He detested being a patient. But he knew now something was terribly wrong. Possibly it was based in the supernatural, in which case no doctor would be able to figure out cause or what should be done about it, but he felt so wretched that he was willing to overrule his usual dedication to avoiding doctors and hospitals at all costs and embrace the moment. Hell, if this guy had any answers, he'd go toss a caber with him and drink single malt even though his drink of choice was Hunter's Helper, which really was any American whiskey that equaled 'cheap.'

Besides, his little brother was so worried, and hiding it so badly, that Dean wanted to find out what was wrong if only to ease Sam's concern.

The exam was swift, impersonal, uncomfortable but not terribly painful, until the doc found a sore spot in the middle of his spine. Dean flinched then.

When the doctor was done with the exam and had inspected, then treated and rebandaged the wound on the back of his shoulder, he nodded, stuck his head out the door, and called for his nurse to prep several medications.

"You know what this is?" Sam sounded startled. "Don't you have to do tests?"

It was easier, with the exam done, to simply lie back on the exam table, legs bent at the knees, feet propped on the table stand. Dean just rolled slightly rightward to keep pressure off his sore scapula.

"I know what this is, yes; and no, I don't have to do tests, because there really aren't any," the doctor replied. "Diagnosis is based on symptoms and medical history, and everything you've told me fits the profile. The puncture wound, left untreated; jaw spasms; stiff neck; difficulty swallowing; taut abdominal muscles; now whole-body cramping-including one episode severe enough to injure your back. It's classic."

Dean's brows shot up. "Classic what?"

"Tetanus."

He nearly gaped, except his abused jaw wouldn't open that far. He levered himself upright. "Are you shitting me? Lockjaw?"

"When's the last time you had a vaccine booster?"

He had no clue. He looked at Sam. "Did I get one when you had yours last year?"

"I don't think so."

The doctor nodded. "If you can't remember, we assume it's been longer than it should. So, that's first on the list of what Becky's setting up. I'm also going to hit you with immune globulin, antibiotics, and then, when you're back in the car, a hefty dose of muscle relaxant. It'll be strong enough that you won't walk out of here under your own power."

"Back in the car?" Sam echoed. "Aren't you keeping him?"

"No. I'm sending you to the ER an hour up the road." He looked at them one at a time. "This is serious. You need hospitalization. And you'll drive him there, because the delay will be doubled if we wait for an ambulance; town's too small to have its own. I'll call Dan Cook . . . he's the deputy, and he'll give you a police escort. He does it when necessary."

Dean felt like he'd been pole-axed. "Doc—_tetanus_?"

The nurse came in with a tray containing several syringes. The doctor swiftly uncapped three, administered them, then picked up the fourth. "Okay, time to get you back in the car. You head out, and when Dan picks you up on the road he'll drop in front of you, work you through traffic—though we don't really get much on this back road." He paused. "People tend not to think of tetanus much these days, which is why so many forget about the boosters. But it's a very serious bacteria. And your back pain? You may have cracked a vertebra. Severe muscle spasms can cause bones to break, joints to dislocate. Come on. Into the car. Then drive like a bat out of hell—Dan'll lead you in—and I'll call ahead to warn the ER to expect you. They'll meet you outside the entrance."

Dean got off the exam table, felt Sam step in close.

"Don't touch him," the doctor said sharply.

Sam jerked his hand back. "Why?"

"The spasms are usually sensory-linked. Light, loud noises, physical touch—even a draft can trigger them."

"It was the sunlight awhile ago," Sam said, frowning, "and then I touched him."

"That's all it takes," the doctor said. "Not every time, and it's unpredictable, but best not to do anything that might trigger another episode. No music in the car, keep your eyes closed—wear sunglasses, if you have them—no loud talking. Think of your brother as a very sensitive landmine." A faint smile flickered briefly. "He shouldn't, well, _explode_ on the drive with the carisoprodol onboard, but best to be careful."

Dean thought it all slightly surreal and completely, utterly unbelievable. But then, that was the story of their lives.

The doctor followed them to the car, waited until Dean was settled on the passenger side, then gave him the injection. "It won't knock you out, but you'll be pretty loopy. Still, it should keep you from spasming on the drive." Leaning down, he looked across at Sam. "Good luck. Don't waste any time. Like I said, they'll be expecting you." He closed the door with care.

Sam checked traffic, drove from the lot like a bat out of hell, and by the time they hit the outskirts a patrol cruiser had caught up, lights flashing, siren wailing, swung around the Impala, dropped into place ahead of them.

"This is so wrong," Dean said.

"What—that you're sick?"

"Well, that, yeah. But I meant that we're _working with a cop _as you exceed the speed limit_._" He paused, opened the glovebox, pulled out a pair of sunglasses.

Sam smiled a little, then blew out a heavy breath. "How are you feeling?"

"I'm a landmine, Sammy. That's pretty cool. Well, if you're gonna be a piece of ordnance."

"Meds kicking in?"

"Uh, yeah. Startin' the slide, man. Slip-slidin' away." He smiled crookedly. "That stuff has more of a kick than the yellow pills." He felt his body begin to give in to it, felt the slow sweep through limbs. He hated the sensation, hated feeling helpless, not in full control. But it was better, so very much better, than the spasms.

"Hey, Dean?"

"Huh?"

"After this we're getting regular boosters."

"Works f' me . . ."

"With what we do, it should be first on our list every year. Or however often it's supposed to be given." He paused. "Are you in any pain?"

Dean shifted against the seat. "Nuh. Don't think. Dunno. Can't tell. Maybe. Feelin' too loose t'tell."

"God, Dean. I'm so sorry."

He opened his eyes and frowned hazily out the windshield. "F'what?"

"Missing that shot. I could have killed the black dog and saved you this trouble."

"—missed too, Sammy."

"And I'm sorry I triggered the spasms."

"Don' think was you . . . sun jus' too sudden, too bright. Jus' –like load a'bricks." He drew in a deep breath, felt relief that he could do so without the constriction in his torso. Even his jaw felt better. "Damn black dog. _Tooth_ in my shoulder . . . now this."

"I'm sorr—"

"_Stop_ bein' sorry. 'kay? Shit happens. When your name is Winchester, shit jus' happens."

"You're gonna be okay, Dean."

"'course. Always am, Sammy." He pulled himself more upright in the seat, looked at his brother. Yup. The worried puppy-dog eyes were working overtime. "I'm Wolver-freakin'-ine, and he always heals."

And then he didn't say anything more, even when Sam asked him a couple of questions. Eventually he just slumped sideways against the door panel and let it hold him up while he hummed Metallica.

* * *

**He remembered.**

The principal, Mr. Hanley, sat behind his desk and gazed upon Dean with quiet brown eyes. He said nothing, but checked his watch twice in five minutes. Then the secretary tapped on the door, opened it, announced that "Mr. Winchester is here," and Dean saw his father enter the office.

_I am in so much trouble_.

But Dad just smiled easily, shook Mr. Hanley's hand, took the indicated seat immediately next to his son. To Dean's surprise, he wore pressed jeans, a decent button-down shirt, and even a knitted tie. Same old scuffed boots, though.

Mr. Hanley was a middle-aged man with thinning dark hair just beginning to go pepper-and-salt. His features were relaxed, but his eyes watchful. "Mr. Winchester, ordinarily I'd have brought you in alone to discuss the matter privately, but because this is the third time in as many weeks that Dean has gotten into a fight, I thought it best that he hear what I have to say to you." Dean saw Mr. Hanley's gaze switch briefly to him. "According to his school records, he's participated in fights prior to this as well. He's only been here three weeks, Mr. Winchester. This is a clear pattern of bullying. Have you ever addressed this with your son?"

Dean felt the weight of his father's eyes on him. "I have."

"And?" the principal asked.

Dad ignored him. "Dean, have you told Mr. Hanley why you've gotten into fights?" He paused. "Sit up straight, son; don't slump. Tell the man."

Dean pulled himself more upright, folded his hands into his lap. He met the principal's eyes straightly, as he knew Dad wanted. "It's Sammy. I'm protecting him."

Mr. Hanley frowned briefly. "That's right, you have a younger son here as well."

"Sammy's six," Dad said. "Which makes Dean ten, and yes, he's very protective of his younger brother. I don't support a boy who fights for no reason, you understand, and Dean and I _will_ discuss this, but we've moved around a lot, Sammy's small for his age, and he seems to be a magnet for bullies. _Real _bullies." Dad's smile was easy, but Dean recognized the tone in his voice. A message was being sent, and it wasn't to his son. "Now, Sammy doesn't like to make a fuss, and we don't discuss our business with strangers—forgive me, sir, but you are a stranger to us—so it's unlikely he'd ever come forward to complain. Not to his teachers, not to me, and certainly not to a principal. Sammy doesn't complain, he _endures_. So he probably hasn't said anything to his brother, either, but Dean's got instincts when it comes to his baby brother. You don't harm our family, Mr. Hanley. Surely you can see that."

Dean thought Mr. Hanley probably did, because the man was reassessing Dad with slightly-widened eyes. "We can't permit fighting, Mr. Winchester."

"Of course not. Nor should you. And, as I said, Dean and I will certainly have a talk about this." He paused. "You got any brothers or sisters, Mr. Hanley?"

"A sister, two brothers."

"Any of them younger?"

"All of them."

Dad smiled that slow, broad, smooth smile, teeth white against his tanned face. "Well then. You understand very well what I'm talking about." He looked at Dean, who saw the spark in his dark eyes. "Dean, this man is doing his job. He's looking after all of the kids in school, as he should. It's his responsibility to make certain the peace is kept. I need you to respect that." Dean nodded, and Dad turned back to Mr. Hanley. "What are your intentions? Are you suspending my son?"

Mr. Hanley repositioned himself in the chair, looked thoughtful, glanced at Dean, then looked back at Dad. "Detention. One week. One hour, every day after class."

Dad nodded. "That's fair. I appreciate it."

"And it must not happen again, or he will be suspended."

"That's to be expected. Dean? Do you understand?"

"Yes, sir."

"Will it happen again?"

"No, sir."

Dad nodded. "Good. Now, is this just one boy who's been hassling your brother, or several?"

"Just the one."

"Do you know him?"

"He's in my math class. Jack Dudley. He picks on Sam. I told him to stop. He just laughed. Said he'd do what he wanted." Dean paused. "He's been making Sammy give him his lunch money."

Mr. Hanley sat up sharply. "What?"

"I see," Dad said. He smiled at Mr. Hanley, but it wasn't a friendly expression. Dean knew it very well from the job. "So, a boy who is _four years older_ than my youngest is bullying him for his lunch money. Maybe it's time you pulled this Jack Dudley in here—accompanied by _his_ father—and had a discussion with him. Or even . . ." He shrugged, grinned. ". . . bring me in, too, and I'll have a little chat with the father. What do you say, Mr. Hanley?"

"I will be having a talk with Jack Dudley and his father. Yes. But of course it must be confidential, and I see no need for you to be present, Mr. Winchester."

"Okay. Just offering." He nodded. "We done here?"

"We are." Mr. Hanley looked at Dean. "Detention starts tomorrow."

"Yes, sir."

"Very well." He pushed back his chair, rose, extended his hand. "Thank you for coming in, Mr. Winchester, and for understanding that we simply can't tolerate fighting in school."

"Nor should you." Dad stood too, several inches taller than the principal, and shook his hand firmly. "I'm glad you have my sons' best interests at heart, Mr. Hanley, and those of your others students. After all, it's our job to make sure our kids know what's expected of them." He released the man's hand. "Okay, Dean. Let's go."

Dean knew enough to wait until they were walking through the corridor before he said anything. In fact, he waited until they were outside, heading to the parking lot.

"That guy doesn't even see it, Dad. He doesn't know you '_handled'_ him."

"That's the point, son. With some people, you've got to let them think they're the big dog while you quietly get what you want. You don't _bully_ them."

And Dean knew then there really was going to be a talk, that Dad was not happy with the fighting even if it was for Sammy's sake. "I couldn't let him do it, Dad. He was pushing him around, taking his money. And we don't have much money for lunch."

"Sammy's been eating?"

"Yeah."

"You been buying him lunch and skipping your own when this Jack Dudley took his money?"

"Well, yeah."

They were at the car. Sammy was waiting in the back seat and his eyes got huge as Dad opened the passenger door, indicated Dean should get in, then rounded the Impala and slid in behind the wheel. He inserted the key in the ignition, but didn't immediately turn over the engine.

Dad stared out the windshield. "You should protect your brother, Dean. Whatever the cost. Because that's what family does. But you gotta be smarter about it. You've got to '_handle'_ it, and sometimes that means leaving the fists at home." He looked at Dean, smiled. "Okay, kiddo?"

Dean nodded. "Yes, sir."

Dad tousled his hair. "Good boy."

"Dad?"

"Yeah?"

"Why are you wearing a tie?"

After a moment, John Winchester sighed very deeply. "Camoflauge," he said. "I'm protecting my family."

"With a tie?"

"Let them see what you want them to see, Dean. A responsible, upright father who puts on a tie to meet with the principal, so the man believes he can look after his boys proper. And I don't always, and I know that; and I know I leave you and Sammy alone too much, and the money's always short, but I do what I can. I do . . . what I can." He paused, and Dean saw his father's eyes were moist. "Christ, this is never what Mary and I wanted."

And Sam was leaning over the seat, one hand patting a broad Winchester shoulder. "It's okay, Dad."

"Thanks, Sammy." Dad looked at his eldest, nodded once. "You protect your brother, Dean. That's your job."

"Yes, sir. Always."

* * *

Dean roused, stirred against the door panel. Sat more upright. The meds ran thick in his body, but his head felt briefly clear, like clouds were parting. "Dad was cool," he said.

Coming from left field, it clearly startled Sam. "What?"

"Hey, he was a hard man. Stubborn son of a bitch. The life changed him, like it has us. He wasn't what a principal would call a 'proper' father, not if he knew the truth of our lives, but he protected us against far more threats than anyone other than hunters are even aware of."

"Dean—are these the meds talking?"

"I know you didn't see eye-to-eye on much, but dammit, Sammy, he just wanted to keep you safe. That's why he didn't want you to go to Stanford. He couldn't keep you safe if you were there and we were on the road."

"He told you that?"

"Eventually. Hell, maybe he knew that yellow-eyed bastard had you in his sights. Or maybe he just didn't want to lose the only other living piece he had left of his wife." Dean sucked in air, released it on a hard burst of a sigh. "God, but I miss him."

Sam was quiet a long moment. "Yeah." He cleared his throat. "How you doing?"

"Peachy."

"I think we're almost to the hospital."

"Peachy."

"I wish . . ."

Dean knew what he wished. "Nothin' you can do, Sammy. Nothin' you can do. It's just the Win-freakin'-chester luck."

The clouds came back to cover the sun. He closed his eyes again, let himself float across the sky.


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter Nine**

* * *

The deputy escorted them right up to the ER entrance, waved a hand out the window, left them behind. Dean realized someone was opening the passenger door even as Sam got out.

"You the tetanus case?" someone asked. "Doc MacFarlane said you were in a big black car with a police escort."

"Yes," Sam answered. "What are we doing? What's the next step?"

"We need you to stay out of the way, sir. I know you're worried about your friend—"

"_Brother_."

"—but we'll handle him. My name's Jackson, Samuel Jackson; and no, the actor and I are not related. I just go by Jackson. Meanwhile, I'm Dean's nurse for the time being, and I'm good at what I do."

Dean, still slumped against the seatback, stared up at the big man. White guy. Broad. Heavy through the shoulders. Little bit of a gut. Dean pegged him as ex-football, maybe semi-pro. Shaved head, but dark eyebrows. Brown eyes. Wire-rimmed glasses. "Gonna '_handle'_ me, huh? You think so?"

"I know so." The guy was _really_ big. "Got a gurney right here. We'll load you up, roll you in, check you out. Doc MacFarlane faxed the history he took from you, what he's done. We'll do a head-to-toe, see what there is to see. You ready?"

"He said not to touch him," Sam asserted.

"He's pumped full of Soma, should be fine. Won't have worn off yet. Come on, fella. Let's get you up."

Dean was willing enough to climb out of the car, but his body wasn't terribly cooperative. He felt like overcooked pasta. Maybe it was a good thing the big guy was there, though he'd rather have Sam.

"My brother," he said. "He comes with."

"That's fine." The nurse—Jackson—bent down low, clasped Dean's forearms, pulled him up and out of the car. He did indeed '_handle'_ Dean, and the next thing Dean knew he was being urged down flat atop the gurney.

"You're kind of . . . forceful."

"That's why they hired me." He buckled straps over Dean's chest and hips. "Okay, get ready for the E-ticket ride."

He had, in his life, been hauled into hospitals more times than he could count, either by Sam in the Impala, or Bobby, Dad; even by ambulance, if a hunt had really gone bad. He hated it, hated being strapped down, being helpless; hated being rolled along corridors and hallways, pushed around like he was a piece of meat; hated the staring, the assessments, the curiosity.

Sam kept pace alongside the gurney as the big nurse pushed it. "You okay?"

His teeth were gritted, and it wasn't from the tetanus. "—want outta here."

"I know. "

"—hate this."

"I know."

"—feel freakin' _helpless_!"

"Yeah."

"He always like this?" Jackson asked.

"Yes," Dean answered with exquisite clarity, even as Sam said the same.

"So, this was a dog bite?"

"Yes," Sam said. "Big old pitbull came roaring out of a yard, nailed me—" he displayed his bandaged arm, "—then my brother when he jumped in to save me. Fortunately, the owner was there and had papers proving the dog had been vaccinated."

Dean smiled. _Atta boy,_ _Sammy. Save me from those rabies shots!_

"My brother just didn't realize he'd been bitten, was worried about _me_," Sam went on. "He does that, the moron."

"You see a doctor for your arm?" the nurse asked. "Dog bites can be nasty."

Sam wore his earnest face. "Of course."

Dean thought, _Black dog bites are worse._

Jackson rolled him into a curtained cubicle, parked the gurney, unbuckled the straps. "Okay, I need you to strip down, put on the gown. I'll let your brother help, but I'll be right outside the curtain. Don't get off the gurney. That much Soma will make your legs wobbly. Well, it makes all of you wobbly, which in this case is exactly what we want. Wobbly is better than spasms."

Dean agreed with that wholeheartedly. Hurricane Jackson pulled the curtain aside, stepped out, and Dean shot his brother a glance of sheer, glowering, stink-eye annoyance.

"I know," Sam said, and started on his boots.

* * *

Within hours, they had him on an IV cocktail of antibiotics, relaxant, sedative. A second line fed him saline. Dean was flying high.

He was hooked up to various monitors. His brother sat beside him. Dean rolled his head against the pillow, saw how Sam stared off across the room. He was rigid in the chair, arms crossed against his chest. "Sammy."

Sam started, looked at him with his eyes gone huge. "Are you back?"

"Back? D'I go somewhere?"

"Yeah. You said you were going to hike the moon."

"—I did?"

"Yeah." Sam's smile flickered, fell off his mouth. "Glad you're back, bro. Don't like being left behind."

"Doc said . . . what?"

"You're sick, Dean. That you're sick."

"—know that. What else? Hospital doc, not the Highlander."

Sam drew in a breath, blew it out in a thin stream. "He confirmed it's tetanus. That it's a severe case."

"—happens next?"

"Well, you're gonna be here awhile."

Dean worked his mouth , flexing it. He was sore from head to toe, but his jaw ached unrelentingly. "_Did_ I hike the moon?"

"I don't know. You went radio silence for awhile."

"Must have been on the dark side, like Pink Floyd."

"Must have been, yeah."

"One giant hop for Deankind."

"They've got you on some heavy-duty relaxants and sedatives." Sam's voice sounded tight. "You had another episode when the Soma wore off the first time. They'll back off the sedative in a bit, maybe stop it entirely when you're stable. You'll be on the relaxant for awhile. But Dean . . . you have to promise not to fight."

He frowned, trying to stitch together his fractured thoughts. "Fight what?"

"They, uh . . . they said it's routine for severe cases."

"Routine what?"

"Restraints. What the first doctor said is true: if the spasms are bad enough, you can dislocate joints, break bones."

"My back?"

"Yeah, they did an x-ray. You cracked the one vertebra, but it's not bad. Since you're in bed anyway, they said it will heal on its own just fine."

Dean stirred in bed, tested limbs. Sure enough, ankles and wrists were in fleece-padded restraints.

The slow beat of panic rolled up from his gut "No. No, Sammy. Nonono . . ."

"Dean, you gotta chill."

"Sammy—get these off me!"

Sam stood up, moved close. "Dude, you've got to stay calm. Otherwise they'll up the sedative. And you could trigger another episode."

"—_off!_"

The monitor beside his bed emitted a high, frenzied beeping. Within a minute or two, Jackson was in the door, evaluating the scene. Even as he checked his pockets for—whatever.

"I warned you," Sam told him. "He doesn't do well with restraints."

"No choice," the nurse said crisply. "Okay, Dean, I'm going to add a bit to your cocktail. Rest easy, guy." He inserted the needle into the IV port in one of the hanging bags. "You need to calm down. Your heart rate is too high, too erratic."

"Get 'em off," Dean gasped. "Lemme _up_—"

"Can I touch him?" Sam asked.

"Yeah, he's on enough Soma that should be fine."

And then Sam stood very close, leaned down, closed a hand around Dean's forearm. Placed the flat of his other hand across Dean's chest. "You gotta go easy, dude. Don't fight it. You'll hurt yourself. Just go easy."

He felt the med-induced sluggishness crest throughout his body. "Don't tie me down. Don't tie me down. Sammy, please—don't let 'em do this."

The hand on his arm closed more tightly. "I'm sorry. They've got to."

"—'f I'm drugged . . . if I'm hikin' to th' moon . . . don't need to be 's_trained_."

"Hey," Jackson said, "if you're walking around on the moon, you certainly do need to be restrained, because last I looked you're not in suit and helmet."

Dean tried to move, could barely twitch. "Sammy—make 'em _stop_."

"I can't. Dean, I'm sorry . . . it's necessary. You could hurt yourself."

He was going out. Going down. He could feel it.

Dean summoned every fragment of lucidity he could, dredged up the strength to put command into his words. _"Dad wouldn't do this to me."_

It was a hard blow, as Dean intended. The desolation that swept into Sam's eyes, into his expression and posture, was painful to witness. But Dean didn't see it for long. The added dose of sedative took him into oblivion.

* * *

**He remembered.**

He was taken. Despite precautions, he was taken. And he was carried along by a monster, taken into a mine, hung by tied wrists from the ancient pick-hewn ceiling.

For hours.

His shoulders burned. His wrists were raw.

He hung like a side of beef.

He was no lightweight. Shorter than Sam, not as much weight, but mass he had. It was in his shoulders, his chest. He was nigh on 200 pounds, and that weight, hanging straight down from the ceiling, with feet not touching the ground to provide any relief to shoulders and wrists, was prodigious.

He was not the only one hanging there.

It was a meat locker. A wendigo's meat locker.

He tried to move, tried to put order to his body. But he was hurting, disoriented, and very aware that he was at risk.

He heard the chuffing, the growling, the sound of movement. It wasn't human.

"No," he murmured. So tired. Such pain. What had it done to him? _Cut me down from here. Cut me loose._

The wendigo wouldn't.

He knew himself to be either appetizer, or main course. Or maybe a snack for all the other wendigos come in to watch the Superbowl.

Any movement set his body to turning slightly, one way or another. He tried to hold his head up, but it kept dropping, kept falling forward, toward his chest.

_Sammy. Sammy?_

It approached. It touched him.

Every muscle in his body rose up in protest.

The wendigo cut through his shirt. Dug in claws. Tore a strip of flesh from his back.

He bowed away from the creature, thrust his chest forward in an attempt to remove his back from the claws. But it had already taken flesh from him. Had already tasted him.

He hung there, swung there, turned slowly right and left. He could not hold back the grunting, the moan, the expulsions of air mixed with exhalations of pain.

_Sammy . . . get me out of here. Cut me loose!_

And Sam came, and found him, shook him as he hung there to test for proof of life; when it came, he cut him loose. Lowered him to the ground. "Hey, you okay?"

Dean winced against the pain. "Yeah."

"You sure you're all right?"

He was. Because his brother had found him, had cut him down. Had rescued _him_, when it was his job to rescue Sammy.

_This is not the way it's supposed to work_.

And he hated, absolutely _hated_, being tied up. Being tied down. Tied in any fashion. It was _failure_. It was _weakness_.

It was a Winchester sin.

Not his father's sin. Dad had said nothing, ever, about it.

It was Dean's sin alone, to know such abject failure.

"_It's not for you to rescue me. It's for me to rescue you."_

_ "And when you do need rescuing, Dean? Am I not supposed to come?"_

_ "Dad will. Let Dad come."_

_ "I can't rescue you?"_

Though he was down from the ropes, no longer suspended, he felt it still: the hanging, the turning.

_"Not your job, Sammy. Up to me, to see you safe."_

_ "I won't leave you, Dean. I'll never leave you."_

_ "Cut me loose, Sammy."_

_ "I did. You are. Always, Dean." _

* * *

"Cut me loose, Sammy."

"I can't. I won't. It's necessary, to keep you safe. To save you pain."

Dean opened his eyes and stared at his brother. He saw the tears there, in Sammy's eyes. On his face. "Let me go."

"No," Sam said.

And it crossed his mind to wonder: _Do I deserve this? Have I failed?_

Yes. He had.

_Sammy shouldn't even be here. Sammy should be at school._

"—sorry," Dean said.

"Sorry for what, Dean?"

For so many failures he could not begin to count them.

"Dean. You have never failed me. Or Dad. Or anyone."

He loosened jaw and mouth, because he could. It was luxury. He managed the faintest of brief, sharp smiles. "Dad's dead, because of me."

"_Jesus,_ Dean."

"What's dead should _stay_ dead."

* * *

He roused to voices. Recognized Sammy's. Thought about saying he was awake again, but Sam was talking, so he listened.

"Can't you back him off the meds? This isn't—him. He doesn't do well when he's cooked on this kind of stuff, and I think if he were more coherent he'd stop fighting the restraints. You've got him literally fastened to the bed, plus all the tubes and wires."

"Is your brother claustrophobic?"

Dean heard the minute pause. "It hasn't been formally diagnosed," Sam said easily, "but, well, I guess it's possible."

He was _not_ claustrophobic. But if it took Sam making up a story that he was to get him out of the restraints, he'd be as claustrophobic was needed.

"He had . . . he had a bad experience when he was a kid."

Well, he'd had a lot of bad experiences when he was a kid. But not the kind that people like Samuel Jackson, nurse, would ever think about.

"And then later . . . the PTSD."

Sam was really going for an Oscar with this performance.

"Did he serve?" Jackson asked.

"He doesn't like to talk about it," Sam said.

_Good move, Sammy. Never know when we might run into a former soldier who'd cut right through the bull._

"I don't know much," Sam said. "We were not exactly on good terms for a few years, didn't even talk for two of them. So, you know, I don't really know some of the things that happened to him. But we got past it, and we're close now. Close _again_."

Damn. Sammy was channeling their father: _Use the truth to tell a good lie. _

"Family's the most important thing in the world," Jackson noted.

"So, can you back him off the sedative? Take off the restraints?"

"I'll talk to the doc, sure," the nurse said. "But—you need to know something."

_What?_ Dean wondered.

"What?" Sam asked.

"Your brother's not getting better. He's getting worse."


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter Ten**

* * *

He was in a private room on the ICU floor, because they feared the noise of another patient could trigger spasms. They kept the lights dim. Spoke in quiet voices. Touched him carefully but only when necessary, though he was promised the relaxant would prevent physical contact from triggering him.

_Should_ prevent.

Anymore, no one was certain.

Sam didn't, wouldn't, leave. At some point Jackson hauled in a recliner to replace the stiff plastic chair at his bedside. Sam sat in it, slept in it. Talked to him quietly. Read when Dean slept, or surfed the web.

Looking for a case?

Would they ever again work a case?

Together?

Maybe Sam would.

When his heart developed arrhythmia, they added more meds. It was, he was told, not unexpected in a severe case of tetanus. And he could feel it in his chest, a heart that spasmed as his body had, before they shoved the cocktail into his veins. Squeezing, flipping, jumping, twitching. Pausing. And then it all started again. Until finally the meds worked, and he heard the steady beeping of the monitor, saw the desired peaks in the electronic line. Felt the easing in his chest, the normal, steady beats.

This, he could deal with. He'd been through it before, but worse, when 100,000 volts of electricity had nearly sent him to death. Would have, had Sammy not found the faith healer, had a reaper not been bound. Had a man not died in his stead.

His heart wasn't damaged. It just didn't want to beat normally. But they fixed that, even as they worked to fix the other stuff.

But this . . . this he couldn't take. Not anymore.

He wanted so badly to move in the bed. To get up, walk to the bathroom. Pee. Walk back on his own. Not be locked down in bed like a lunatic when all he was, was sick.

Despair, desperation . . . both distant. But come they did.

"—_off_," he said.

Sam, half-asleep, stirred upright in the recliner. "What?"

"Take 'm off, Sammy. Please."

"Dean—if you go into a full-body spasm, you can do serious damage to yourself."

"I'm too . . . 'm too drugged, Sam . . . jus' can't stay like this. 'kay?" He twitched hands, feet. "—don' ev'n need tell anyone . . . _you_ do it. Please. Sammy."

Sam stared hard at the ground and said nothing. Tears filled his eyes.

Dean stared hard at the wall and also said nothing. His tears fell.

* * *

Eventually they stepped him down from the sedative. His body remained a rag because of the relaxants, but his head was clear. He'd surrendered fighting the restraints, quit arguing with his doctors and nurses, and had been rewarded. It was easier, but in many ways harder, because without that buffer of sedative-induced haze, he knew exactly what was happening.

_"Your brother's not getting better. He's getting worse."_

From a freakin' _tooth_ in his shoulder.

"Yes," the doctor had said. "A regular booster would have prevented this."

"Asshole," he said.

He didn't mean the doctor.

He meant himself.

* * *

In the middle of the night, with Sam out of the room, he felt the tautness in his jaw, the ripple through his muscles.

Crap.

No.

But he was _on_ stuff. He was _on_ shit. This wasn't supposed to happen.

It did.

By the time Sam was back in the room, Dean had dislocated both of his thumbs against the restraints and cracked another vertebra.

Jackson came running. He took one look, snatched two syringes from the top drawer in the small cabinet between beds, injected the contents of both into an IV port.

"Hang on," he said. "Hang in there, Dean. This'll do it. This'll back you down, plus something for the pain. A little morphine, okay?" And then the nurse ran a strap across Dean's chest and locked it down. "I'm sorry, man. I'm really sorry." He nodded at Sam. "Yeah. You can."

He lay there gasping, trying to catch his breath, feeling the strap across his heaving chest. And one of Sam's hands at his neck, fingers wrapped behind, the heel of his hand along the side. The other hand, resting gently on his shoulder, made circling motions.

Dean's voice was shredded. "How long's it gonna take?"

Jackson was inspecting his right thumb. "To pop this sucker back into place? There. It's done. Bet you didn't feel a thing. Now I'll tackle the other one." He moved around to far side of the bed, popped the left thumb back into place. "There you go."

"How long's it _take_, dude?"

"How long does what take?"

"To die from this."

* * *

**He remembered.**

He'd heard the phrase 'of two minds.' Well, for a brief time in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, in 2006, following the introduction of a semi truck to the side of the Impala, he was of two _bodies_.

Trust a Winchester to do it differently.

One body in the bed, tangled in tubes and wires, hooked to machines. Intubated, to keep his lungs working. Beside the bed, the vent pushed oxygen in, filled his chest, then let lungs deflate. His face was utterly slack.

One body in the doorway, looking on. He couldn't feel the body. But he knew it existed. Knew his mind was in it.

His mind wasn't in the body in the bed.

_How long's it take to die from this?_

He'd died there, in that bed. They'd brought him back.

But he still was dying.

Until Dad made sure he wouldn't.

_What's dead should stay dead._

Maybe this time he would.

* * *

He heard Sam on the phone. "He's got pneumonia, Bobby. They may have to put him on a vent."

His brother sounded exhausted.

"Yeah, it's from tension in the chest. He can't inflate his lungs all the way because of the spasms."

Dean didn't move. Didn't open his eyes. He simply listened.

"They say it happens a lot in severe cases." And then the exhaustion was replaced by despair, and an underlying anger. "Dammit, Bobby, I didn't even realize . . . people _die_ from tetanus!"

_Oh, Sammy._

"And I think he knows it."

Oh yeah.

Would it be Tessa again, who came for him?

"Yeah, Bobby. I'd like it if you did. Okay. See you when you get here."

* * *

They couldn't intubate through the mouth because of the potential for jaw and throat spasms and injury. And so when he woke up very slowly from anesthesia, he learned the surgeon had performed a tracheotomy and inserted a tube into this neck. He heard the whoosh and click of the ventilation machine, yet another part of the mechanical symphony at his bedside.

They told him he couldn't talk. Not that he shouldn't. That _literally_, he couldn't.

Dean Winchester, silenced.

So freakin' unfair, when the world benefited so often from his words of wisdom.

Well, it would give Sammy some peace.

* * *

Aftereffects of surgical anesthesia combined with his usual cocktail kept him close to the edge of unconsciousness. He was not, however, unconscious. But he couldn't talk, couldn't move, had tubes and wires and hoses invading him from everywhere, and he was absolutely certain he looked comatose.

But he wasn't.

He could open his eyes; he simply didn't. He was too far gone on meds. But he could hear.

He heard when Bobby arrived. He smelled him, too: old books, bacon, booze.

"Hey, Bobby," Sam said.

Dean heard his brother get up from the recliner. Heard the rustle of clothing, the slap of hands against backs as, he assumed, Sam and the older hunter hugged briefly. Heard the hard intake of Sam's breath, a murmur from Bobby that was meant for his brother, and then the heavy sigh from the old hunter.

"Jesus Christ, Dean, you had to be different. Had to be _stupid_."

Well. Yeah. On both counts.

"Idjit."

That, too.

"What are they sayin', Sam? The docs?"

"Not much. They don't know. They're following, as one doctor put it, 'recommended medical protocols.'"

"And?"

"Well . . . you're looking at how that's going."

"Sit down, kid. You look beat. I'll pull that chair over for me."

He heard his brother move back into the recliner; sounded like he half-collapsed. A body moved, chair legs scraped across the floor. It was placed very close to his bedside. He sensed the man coming close, leaning down.

"Bobby, don't touch him! It can trigger him. For a while it was okay because they've got him pumped so full of serious muscle relaxants, but now they're not sure. He's . . . not following a normal progression."

Bobby grunted. "He's a Winchester, ain't he?"

"They said this is all 'normal' for severe tetanus—but he's worse than they expected him to be by now, after all the treatment."

"What's the next step?"

Sam said, "This. Support. There's not a _cure_, just treatment."

Bobby moved. Sat down in the chair he'd dragged over. "This is for crap. You hear that, Dean? For _crap._"

Yeah. It was.

Sam sounded much older than his years. "He'll get better, or he'll get worse." He shifted in the recliner. "I got online, did some checking. It's almost unheard of in the U.S. Three people a month. Forty a year. That's it. Dean's now part of medical literature."

"All because he didn't get a booster."

Sam sounded tired. "And a black dog."

Yeah. Don't forget the damn dog.

"You need rest, kid. Those hollows beneath your eyes are deep as the Grand Canyon."

Sam huffed out a very brief laugh. "You ever been there, Bobby?"

"Once. Long time ago. Pretty damn impressive hole in the ground."

"Dean's always wanted to go. Since he was a kid. I remember him asking Dad. You know how he gets when he's excited, focused . . . 'Can we go? C'mon, Dad. Just a little sidetrip. We're close. We're on the road already. Can we just _go?_'" Sam sighed. "But we never did."

"Go when this is over," Bobby suggested.

Sam didn't say anything.

"Think about goin,' Sam. Plan for it. Because your brother ain't dead, and he ain't gonna _be_ dead. He's too damn stubborn."

Dean opened his eyes.

Both Sam and Bobby shot to their feet. Sam leaned down, but took care not to reach out, to touch. "Hey."

Bobby's eyes narrowed. "You heard all that, didn't you?"

The tube was in his neck, not his mouth. It took effort, but Dean gifted Bobby with the twitch of a smile.

Too damn stubborn. Got that right.

He couldn't speak. But he could move his mouth. And so he shaped the words as clearly as he could.

_'Hey, Bobby.' _

Bobby's voice was very gentle. "Hey yourself."


	11. Chapter 11

** Chapter Eleven**

* * *

**He remembered.**

It was a spill of memories, all tumbled upon one another. He'd overheard it as a kid, from some of Mom's lady-friends:

_"Mary, that boy is going to break a lot of hearts when he grows up."_

He'd heard it from a teacher:

_"Don't you use those big eyes on me, Dean Winchester. You still have to turn in your paper."_

From a high school jock:

_"You're too pretty for your own good, Winchester. Maybe you're really a girl. How 'bout we find out."_

From one high school student to another, neither of whom were jocks:

_"Yeah, I could go for that mouth on my joystick."_

He even remembered a puzzled Sammy asking:

_"How come the girls all stare at you, Dean?"_

And eventually, from his father:

_"Christ, Dean, if you ever learn how to use what you got, you could conquer the world. Or at least all the women in it." _

Oh, the women. Who did indeed appreciate certain physical attributes. The face. The eyes. The mouth. The Dean Winchester grin.

He'd learned to use them all to get what he wanted. But sometimes there was no agenda at all. None. There was just—Dean.

He was what he was. Had what he had.

What he was, and what he had, now, was a broken body.

He remembered, too, how one night, long ago, Cassie had sung it to him:

_You're just too good to be true  
Can't take my eyes off of you  
You'd be like heaven to touch  
I wanna hold you so much_

No one could hold him now.

No one dared touch him now.

But he would find a way. He would find a way to talk.

He'd use what he had.

* * *

They thought he was asleep. And mostly, he was. He slipped in and out of it easily because of the meds, sometimes awake for a couple of hours, sometimes managing maybe five minutes before fading again. It was hard for them to tell.

Sometimes, it was hard for _him_ to tell.

"Your brother," Bobby said with infinite dryness from his seat beside the bed, "don't need to talk to make his needs or thoughts known. Oh, I know his special brand of bullshit is currently lacking, courtesy of that tube in his throat, but trust me when I say he's gonna be able to communicate just fine."

"How?" Sam asked skeptically. "He can't move, he can't speak."

"Because your brother spent a few months not talking after the fire that killed your mother, and everyone understood him just fine."

Sam's natural baritone slipped higher. "Dean stopped talking?"

That's right. Sammy wouldn't remember. Too young at the time to realize.

Bobby grunted. "I know it seems impossible to imagine a mouthy bastard like your brother going silent, but he did. Your dad worried about it. I didn't. I figured he was just working stuff out. People think if you're three-four that you don't remember much. That's not the case. Little kids can remember a lot . . . it's just usually not clear, and the moments come like snapshots, short videos. But he was almost five, that night. I tried to tell your dad, but John was so stove up in his head with grief and anger he couldn't hear me. All he knew was he had a bitty baby to look after, and he wasn't equipped to do it. Don't get me wrong, Sam—he didn't _ignore_ your brother. But he had his hands full."

"But Dean could _physically_ still talk."

"'course. He just didn't _choose_ to. Trauma does funny things sometimes. I figured he just needed time. Your brother can get all balled up in his head, tie himself up in knots. It's why he shuts down on you sometimes, Sam. He thinks too much, and he can't find his way through to the words. Easier for him to just let it go, say nothin.' It ain't pretty, sometimes, but it's his way of dealin' with crap. I don't know what he was like before your daddy brought you both to my door, before the fire, but I saw a boy who was sufferin.' You had only to look into those eyes, see how he held himself, watch his face. And that's how he talked, Sam. That's how he'll talk now. You wait. You'll see."

"How long after the fire did we come to you, Bobby?"

"Don't rightly remember exactly. Your dad left you and your brother with some good folks for a bit while he got his legs under him, then went to Missouri Moseley. She read him, saw what had happened, had a good long talk with him, acquainted him with some facts. Then she sent the three of you to Pastor Jim, and it was Jim Murphy who looked after you for a while longer. Then Jim sent you on to me, because he knew I could provide your daddy with the kind of information he was lookin' for. Even then, I was kind of the Encyclopedia Britannica of the supernatural. At any rate, when you three showed up on my porch, I think it had been maybe four-five months since the fire. John just said Dean wasn't talkin,' hadn't for a few months and maybe he needed a doctor, but I said let him be. Let him think his way through it. And he did."

"What brought him out of it?"

"You. You did, Sam."

* * *

**He remembered**.

It was Bobby. It was Sam, too, but it was Bobby, mostly.

"Come on, boy. You come outside with me. Your kid brother's sleepin,'praise the Lord and pass the mashed potatoes, and your daddy's trying' to get up to speed on several thousand years' worth of lore. Sorry to say I got no train sets, or games, or VHS tapes suitable for kids—and the books are all a little above your paygrade, as yet—but I can show you some stuff that might interest you. And you don't have to say nothin,' either, because I don't care. Just come along, Dean."

He hadn't wanted to go. He'd wanted to remain in the room with Sammy, or at least stick close to his dad. He didn't know this place, didn't know this man, didn't know anything anymore except that he had, in one terrible night, lost his mother, his home, and even his father, because Dad was no longer the same. He didn't know why, thought maybe it had something to do with the fire, but Dad was no longer the same.

His father had said: "You know how your mother always told you angels are watching over you? Well, angels are watching over her, now. Your mother's in heaven, Dean."

"Forever?"

"Forever."

"Why? Doesn't she need to look after me and Sammy anymore?"

"She'll look after you from heaven, son. She's looking down right now."

He peered skyward. The day was made of gray. Gray like the headstone set at the grave where, he learned later, neither body nor ashes lay. There'd been a service, but he and Sammy had been left with Mrs. Jenkins from across the street. It was a day later that Dad took him out to the cemetery and explained.

Angels had taken his mother.

He wanted her back.

Angels were evil.

_Angels are watching over you_, she told him every night.

Angels took her.

_Angels are bad_.

Angels could see everyone. Angels could hear everyone.

But only if they talked.

If he didn't talk, angels couldn't hear him. Angels wouldn't _know_ that he hated them.

"Come on, son," Bobby Singer said. "Come on out with me. Got some stuff to show you."

Bobby walked him around the yard. Showed him everything. All the sandwiched cars, the junkers; the piles of parts, stacks of trunk lids, coffee cans full of nuts and bolts, shiny chrome bits, lug-nuts; tire irons, discarded jacks, bent and broken antennas, wires braided into ropes; towers of tires, palisades of seats pulled out of vehicles; gear shift knobs, hubcaps, naked radios with guts exposed, windshield wipers. And more. And more.

Bobby Singer said, "I figure you know some of this stuff, because your Daddy's a mechanic. Now it's your turn. I want you to build me a car, Dean. It doesn't have to be a _real_ car, but I want you to _match up_ the hubcaps, the horn caps, the radios, the grill badges, taillights, headlights, gearstick knobs, and so on. You got me? Don't try to build me a Chevy Impala with Ford Fairlane parts. It's got to fit, Dean. It's got to be right. So I'm gonna give you three days, and then I'm gonna come out and see what you've accomplished. Deal?"

He was five years old, and he built his first car.

Sort of.

Dad smiled. Bobby shook his hand.

His brother, held in Dad's arms, cried.

His brother cried a lot.

Dean went up to his dad. He didn't care about angels anymore. "Maybe Sammy needs to build a car, too."

He saw the shock run through his father's face; saw him look sharply to Bobby. And then he saw the wonder, the slow smile, the realization and gratitude.

Dad knelt down. "He's a little small yet, Dean—but yeah, maybe he needs to build a car, too."

Dean patted his baby brother on the head. "I'll show you, Sammy. When you're bigger."

* * *

He opened his eyes, stared hard at the ceiling. Recaptured reality from recollection. Rolled his head slightly to the right - he couldn't move much because of the tube in his neck - and saw his brother, and the man who was damn near their father.

Bobby grunted. "What's he sayin,' Sam?"

"That he wants a cheeseburger with onions, a beer, whiskey chaser, and to know where the Impala's parked."

Dean wanted to laugh. He settled for as much of a grin as his jaw could manage.

"You're lyin'," Bobby observed.

Sam smiled, nodded. "Yeah. What he's really saying is he's glad we're here."

Oh, he was. More than he could say.

Even if it were possible to say.

He stared at his brother. Asked him, in silence. All it took was a slight tilt of his head, raised brows, and the eyes. Expectancy.

Sam saw it. "I don't think—"

Dean 'asked' him again.

"Yeah," Sam said.

He climbed out of the recliner, moved close, reached down, closed one hand gently around his brother's forearm.

And it was enough.

With his free hand, Sam gently touched his head. Fanned back the spray of hair.

Then he laughed. "Whoops, there's stink-eye! No chick-flick moments. I have moved into the Estrogen Zone."

"Told ya," Bobby said. "Big bad Dean Winchester ain't hard to read at all when you know how."

"Yeah," Sam agreed. "And right now it's 'If looks could kill.'"

_Then the two of you ought to be lying dead on the floor_.

"You need anything?" Sam asked. "Other than the obvious, that is?"

He didn't care if it was obvious. Dean rattled his wrists against the restraints.

Sam didn't need to use words, either. His anguish was palpable.

_What could it hurt?_ Dean asked.

Sam's eyes said, _It could hurt you_.


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter Twelve**

* * *

**He remembered**.

In the tree-fractured glow of a three-quarter moon, Sam went down beneath the black dog because Dean's first shot missed, and then it was a tangle of human limbs and the supernatural and if he shot again he risked hitting his brother.

He'd missed. Dad would be so pissed. Hell, _he_ was pissed.

Dean shoved himself upward from the ground. As Sam's gun cracked in the darkness, he'd landed hard, had twisted to duck beneath the black dog's leap, felt the crumble of soil beneath his right foot, the roll of a downed tree branch; felt the weight, the mass of the big beast as it crashed into him, snapping and growling. He twisted against the ground as he was pressed down into the earth, the leaves, the deadfall.

* * *

It was there. Then. Had to be when it happened. He just hadn't noticed, hadn't _realized_.

Black dog leaping, taking him down. He had turned, twisted, done a face-plant with the beast upon his back.

He'd missed his shot. Sam was in danger.

The dog had caught him hard, thrown him down, grabbed a hold of his body and worried him, as if he were vermin.

Maybe he was.

At some point he'd bitten, had the dog; bitten through clothing, had sunk a big fang into Dean's shoulder blade, and it had broken off.

Broken _off._

Where it sat for a few days buried in his flesh. A foreign body. Toxic fragment of the supernatural.

Measly little _splinters_ could fester.

What the hell did they know about black dog teeth?

The lore. The lore was always a myriad of details, a complex embroidery of fact, truth, supposition, superstition, flights of fancy, suggestions, bullshit, possibilities. It was a mix of variables no one could control, yet in many cases was also what scientists, he knew, called 'empirical evidence,' predictable happenings occurring in the field. Results that could be replicated.

The problem was that the supernatural couldn't always be replicated, could almost never be tested. They put their faith, such as it was, invested their trust into the writings of men who had witnessed, or tested, or suffered themselves; many who gave up their lives. Blood was all over the lore.

Black dogs? The lore was undecided. Some cultures claimed them as death omens, nothing more, playing no role in the death itself, merely being harbingers. Other said they were Satan's hounds. A few said they accompanied the Wild Hunt, looking for lost souls. Others said they escorted those souls to a final resting place.

The black dog he and Sam had hunted, and the one he and Dad had taken on, had been far more than what the lore claimed. It had been killing people.

Written off as a bear attack.

It was as good an explanation as any.

It attacked. It bit. It shredded.

People died.

The lore didn't always get it right. The lore was, in some cases, incomplete. The lore was the best they had—but it wasn't infallible.

He had not been thinking about himself during the hunt, the attack, beyond wishing to survive, to overcome. If you thought too hard about what you were doing in the midst of the battle, you could die. Simple as that. It was best for him to forget about himself and to think about his brother. Because if he thought of _Sam_, he could be invincible.

Could overcome anything.

Could destroy the big bad.

Could save his brother.

* * *

**He remembered**.

A second shot from a handful of yards ahead. The beast atop his body cried out in pain and rage. Then the weight, the pressure was gone, and the black dog left him. Left him and charged at Sam.

Dean came up hard and fast, on one knee, twisting, scrabbling, raising his gun. He heard Sam's blurted outcry, the scrambling of limbs for purchase in a hiss and crackle of decaying leaves; saw his brother sprawled beneath the beast.

Fortunately, unlike hellhounds, black dogs were _visible_.

Shooting was too dangerous. He discarded the gun, yanked the silver knife from his inside jacket pocket. Propelled himself across the ground and leaped. Landed.

Somewhere on the bottom lay his brother, still somehow fighting. Between his own body and that of Sam's was sandwiched a dog no animal control officer had ever seen.

Praying Sam could protect his vulnerable throat, Dean thrust his left arm beneath the beast's neck, caught it in the crook of his elbow, used every amount of leverage he could wield with elbow and shoulder, with back and abdomen, with the cords along his neck as his lips peeled back from hard-bared teeth. The black dog's sheer physical power was immense. But this was _Sammy_ caught beneath the thing.

* * *

He was fuzzy from the meds.

Black dog. Something about a black dog. Something to do with the lore.

_We don't know much_, Sam once said. _The lore is unclear. Lots of different cultures, overlapping stories, contradictions. We know silver kills them, bullets or knives—except when it doesn't. We know they haunt waterways, trails, roads, bridges, even crossroads—except when they don't. We know most don't attack—while some do. For most hunters, it's shoot first, burn and bury—and don't even think about it afterward. But what if there's more to it? What if there are things about black dogs we still have left to learn?_

Dean was onboard with the whole _shoot first, burn and bury_ methodology. It made sense to him to take no risks. Kill the sucker before it killed you. Or others.

Kill it before it took Sam.

Except he hadn't.

* * *

"Hey." It was a voice he knew: the nurse, Jackson, speaking quietly. "Hey, man. How's it going? Listen, I chased your brother and your friend out of here for a bit. They were running on empty, especially Sam. I told them to go get something to eat—and not from the cafeteria. But they'll be back soon. They won't stay gone long. And I've got your brother on speed-dial—said I'd call if you needed him. I've got your back, man. Promise."

He dragged himself up from the darkness that had been filled with black dogs, and teeth, and gunshots.

"Listen, we're going to up your meds a bit," Jackson went on. "Docs aren't real happy that the muscles are still contracting a little, what with all the relaxants you're on. I'm sorry, man. I know you hate it. But you've kind of moved into an area we're not familiar with. I mean, you did have vaccinations as a kid, and a booster at ten, Mr. Singer said . . . you were at his place when you got it . . . even if you weren't good about upkeep later—which _is_ why you're here, after all—so you should have at least a trace of immunity. But it's got you good, man. Or bad. And you _shouldn't_ be this bad."

Black dogs. Black freakin' dogs.

"I'm sorry, man. Don't know what to tell you."

Dean dragged his eyes open. He had no clue of the time; the room was dim, the window blocked by curtains . . . was there a clock? Anywhere? Was it night? Morning? Something in between?

The big nurse stood next to his bedside, feeding the contents of a syringe into an IV bag. Dim light glinted off the wire-rimmed glasses. Dean frowned hard, real hard, screwing his brows together; blinked heavily.

"Nuh." No more meds. God, no more meds. They were messing him up. Blanking his brain. "Gotta . . . _think_ . . . "

"We're doing our best, man. I promise."

Probably they were. As best they knew how.

Doing their best with no knowledge whatsoever of the supernatural.

It wasn't enough. What they did, it wasn't enough.

He was circling the drain, and he knew it.

* * *

**He remembered.**

"Dean!"

It was Dad's voice, from twenty-thirty yards away.

"Dean, dammit, _run_—it's got your scent!"

He wanted to stand his ground. Wanted to pull up, take the stance, prepare for the shot.

But Dad . . . Dad said to run.

"Dean—get your ass out of here! It's got your scent and I don't have a clear shot!"

He'd been, what—twenty? Twenty-one?

_No_.

Twenty-two.

Because Sam was gone. Sam had left.

Just Dad and him, and he felt like someone had amputated his left arm.

Dad was his right arm. Sam, his left. He had no arms of his own.

Dark. Middle of the night. Not quite a full moon, but enough light to see by. Woods, as the lore described: perfect hiding place. They liked cover along the roadways, the streambeds, the crossroads.

He heard nothing beyond the noise of his own passage, the flight Dad ordered. Crackle of leaves, snapping of broken limbs beneath his feet, the whip of branches as he thrust himself by them. He tried to monitor his own breathing, to control it so exhalations did not cover the sound of pursuit, as Dad had taught.

A massive pile of granite boulders hove up from the shadows, moon-pale against the darkness. He ran to it, threw himself over and behind it. Landed hard, but scrambled up in the hissing protest of ancient leaves. He held his gun at the ready.

_Never lose your weapon, Dean. I don't care if it's gun, knife, stake . . . whatever you can use, don't lose it!_

It came out of the darkness, hard. A flurry of limbs, a glow of eyes, a snarl of teeth. He heard the scrape of claws against granite, and then it was on him. It bore him down.

He fired silver bullets into the black dog's gut.

* * *

"Hey," Jackson said. "You need to chill. BP's up, heart rate—Dean, you really need to chill. I'm serious."

He couldn't move. Couldn't speak. He was drugged nearly to insensibility.

_Jesus Christ, could they not see what this was?_

He knew it.

He knew it, now.

"You've got to settle, man. I mean it. Because a medically-induced coma is the next step."

_They don't see . . . they don't know . . ._

"I'm going to have the doc come by," Jackson said. "Hang on, man. Just hang on."

* * *

**He remembered**.

"Dean, hey. You okay? Dean?"

He lay sprawled beneath the big dog. He'd gotten it, he knew. The burst of bullets from his gun had finished it. But the beast had nonetheless landed atop him even as it died, buried most of his body beneath its own.

Dad was frantic. He grabbed the dog, locked fists into it, hurled it from his son. "Dean?"

He moved against the leaves. Heard them crackle. Felt the weariness in his bones, the exhaustion in his muscles.

"Dean, dammit—did it get you? Did it bite you?"

Black dogs were not werewolves. The lore did not cite a black dog bite as something to be terribly worried about, beyond the possibility of normal medical complications that might prove as much an issue with bites from dogs who were _not_ supernatural.

Strength was coming back. Dean moved against the ground; felt Dad take hold; sat up. He screwed up his face, rolled his shoulders and neck. "I'm good. Dad—I'm okay."

Dad's anxiety level dialed itself down, but it wasn't absent. "All right. We'll take a closer look when we get back to the motel. Listen, you sit tight. I'm going to behead and burn the thing."

Dad did that, while Dean sat upon granite and contemplated the fact that he'd escaped the jaws of a black dog. Not something he cared to repeat. Well, other than the survival part.

He knew it was a good thing that he'd killed it. Probably Dad wasn't pleased with the way it had played out, but who could argue with the end results? The sucker was dead. He wasn't harmed. It was win-win.

And then Dad made him strip down at the motel. Strip _all the way_ down, for a full triage. Dean told him what he thought of that.

"We don't _know_," Dad said. "We just don't know. We can't be sure. We have to do what we can, Dean—and always keep in mind that the lore comes from experience. From men and women who've been in the trenches. It's about experience, kiddo . . . and about respecting what others have died for."

"I've read some of the lore," Dean said. "There's nothing in there about black dog bites being poisonous."

"And what if they are?" Dad asked. "Do you know? Do you know _for certain? _Would you stake your life on it?"

* * *

"Dean, hey," Jackson said. "you've got to chill."

He caught the man's eyes with his own. Held them, as he knew he could; he'd been told he could _talk_ with his eyes. He could move neither arms nor legs, could not rise, could not truly lift his head off the pillow as far as he'd like. He couldn't even move much air through his mouth, because he was on a vent with a tube in his neck.

He _'said'_ it as best he could, with what he could muster from posture and expression; from eyes and mouth.

"I'm calling your brother," Jackson said.

Relief was overwhelming.

* * *

Sam and Bobby were back. He didn't know what Jackson had told them in the hallway—bastard, for not saying it in front of him—but he saw their expressions, their tension.

Dammit. He wasn't dying. He was _hunting_.

Hunting answers.

He mouthed it. He shaped the word as clearly as he could.

They didn't get it.

So much for Bobby's conviction that he communicated just fine without a voice.

He said it again and again. There was no sound because of the tube in his neck, feeding him air; he shaped it with his mouth, expelled it as best he could.

Finally he used his right hand. Though his wrist was restrained in a fleece-lined cuff, he rotated it again and again. Stretched out his fingers, closed them, used his forefinger to crudely echo pen or pencil.

"I don't know," Jackson said uneasily. "He's pretty agitated."

Hell _yes_, he was agitated! Jesus, had they never contemplated how difficult it was to communicate in this kind of situation?

When he really needed to?

"Dean, you've got to calm down," Sam said. "You'll trigger an episode."

Dean gave him the most powerful, sincere, and focused stink-eye glare he'd ever used in his life. He tried mouthing the word again, made gestures with his hand.

Thank God for Bobby. "He wants to _write_ something."

Dean nodded as much as he could, staring wide-eyed at them all; tapped his forefinger against the mattress.

Now Sam was onboard. "Tablet," he said. "Pencil, pen. Jackson—can you get them?"

The nurse was dubious. Dean fixed him with as massive a glare as he could manage. He _willed_ the man to understand.

"Yeah," the nurse said. "Yeah, I can get them. I'm not sure—well, never mind." And he went away, and when he came back he had a yellow legal pad and a Sharpie.

Dean rattled his wrist against the restraint. Up. Down. Sideways, much as he could. They didn't want play in his restraints. They were convinced that if they gave him any play, he would go into a whole-body spasm that would fracture bones, dislocate joints. He'd been lucky, they said, that he'd only cracked two vertebra, dislocated thumbs.

Yeah. Lucky.

"He wants to _write_," Bobby repeated, "and you'd best let him do it. If you want him to stand down, you've got to let him do this."

Dean tried to confirm that with his eyes.

Sam's expressin changed. "You know something. Or you _think_ something."

Dean hitched his shoulders as best he could. Then rattled his right restraint.

"I can't release his arm," Jackson said. "You've seen him. You've seen the kind of hell he goes through when the spasms go full-on. You want that for your brother?"

Sam drew in a breath, caught Dean's eye, asked a question in silence, and understood the answer. Nodded. "Yeah. I do. No, I don't want the spasms—but I'm willing to risk it. Because _he_ is. Can you stand by with meds?"

"Docs' orders say we can intervene as necessary, to provide relief in an emergency."

Sam looked at Dean. "We've got to compromise," he said. "He'll free your arm—but if you start to spasm, full-blown spasm, it's over."

He hated compromises. He was a 100% black-and-white kind of guy. But Sam saw everything in grays.

It was as close as he was going to get.

Dean rattled his restraint, let them see all that was in his eyes.

"Okay," Jackson said finally. "I don't like it, but—"

Bobby and Sam together: "_Do it_."


	13. Chapter 13

**Chapter Thirteen**

* * *

Dean tried to keep himself calm. He understood the need for it, the necessity of self-control. He was already so drugged he skirted the edges of sleep. If Jackson gave his IV port another poke of sedative in addition to the muscle relaxant he was on, he'd go out. And if he went out, he couldn't tell anyone anything. Certainly couldn't try to figure out if he were on the right track. On _any_ track.

Jackson was concerned, but wasn't refusing. "Dude, I'd have you sign a waiver—except then I'd have to undo your restraint anyway, which kind of defeats the whole purpose of denying you the chance. So, okay."

Flying by the seat of his pants. It was the Winchester way, if the lore didn't support it.

"What do we do?" Sam asked.

Jackson, on the far side of the bed from his brother and Bobby, handed the legal pad and Sharpie to Bobby. "Sam, I'm going to stand by the IV so I can shovel this stuff in right away, if necessary. So, you go ahead and unbuckle the restraint. I would advise against touching him unless he does spasm, and if that happens I want you to grab his arm and hold it down. The chest strap will keep his torso against the bed, but that arm, when free, could spasm out of control."

"Gotcha." But Sam yet hesitated as he gazed at his brother. "You ready?"

Dean hated the tube in his neck. Hated that the vent shoved air into his lungs. He'd been told that once the pneumonia was under control the tube could come out, but they'd leave the stoma open in case they needed to reinsert.

Dean nodded.

He heard the unbuckling, felt the pressure release. Closed his eyes a moment; just to have _one_ restraint off was a relief so all-encompassing he feared a chick-flick moment.

The faintest of quivers ran down from shoulder through his fingers. He took his bottom lip into his mouth, rolled it between his teeth, consciously tried to relax the arm. He let it lie there, just _lie_ there, as it had been doing.

Don't think about it. Don't think about it. Do the whole Zen yoga Yoda thing and just _be_.

But he wasn't getting any younger.

He opened his eyes again and looked at Bobby. Nodded. Bobby slid the legal pad under his hand, then uncapped the Sharpie.

"Don't flex your arm," Jackson cautioned. "Don't make a fist."

Muscles quivered. It wasn't a spasm. It was _weakness_.

"You okay?" Sam asked.

He nodded again, and Bobby slipped the Sharpie into his fingers. He didn't try to grip it. He put no pressure on it. He didn't close it in his fist—no fist, Jackson'd said—didn't try to arrange his hand into the usual tripod of thumb-forefinger-middle finger. He just held it loosely.

His block printing had always been neat and clear. He wasn't sure it would be now.

The angle was bad. But he didn't want to adjust it for fear his hand, or his arm, or any other part of him, would spasm.

He set the blunt tip of the Sharpie against the top sheet and kept the letters loose, rounded. Slow.

**B DOG**

"Okay," Sam said, nodding.

Dean stopped. Shifted his eyes to the big nurse waiting at his left beside the IV stand. Crap. He needed the man gone. But he knew there was no way the nurse would simply depart and leave them to speak freely.

He looked at Sam, 'talked' with face and eyes.

Sam got it. "Uh, yeah. About that." He considered it. Shrugged, tilted his head in a question. When Dean gave him his answer, also non-verbally, Sam looked then at Bobby.

The older hunter's lips twitched in acknowledgement. He looked at Jackson. "Son, you're about to embark on the kind of journey only few people know about. You ready for this?"

Jackson frowned behind his glasses. "What, because he got bitten by a dog?"

"That, and more," Bobby said.

"This is what we do," Sam said quietly. "This is not a fairy tale. This is not a horror story. This is the truth. And you need to promise—promise me, my brother, and Bobby, too—that it goes no farther than this. Because none of us is crazy. And if you try to make it out that we are, there will be legal repercussions."

Bobby tilted his head toward Sam. "Stanford. Pre-law. Knows his stuff, this kid."

Dean tapped the Sharpie against the tablet. Jackson stared at it, read the letters. "_'B DOG_?' That's it? That's supposed to be a problem?"

"Black dog," Sam said. "And they are. Black, I mean. But it's also the name of a creature. Like _werewolf_. _Vampire_."

Jackson's brows shot up, then drew down and knitted. "So, this wasn't a pitbull that nailed you and your brother?"

"Not even close," Sam said.

"Okay." Jackson seemed amenable, if uncomprehending. "Hey, I'm just a nurse. I'm here to push meds into the IV bag if necessary. You guys can say all you want. Besides, your brother's already on a drug cocktail—he can claim to be Judy Garland in _The Wizard of Oz_, for all I care, and I won't say a word." He paused. "You're not going to tell me flying monkeys are real, are you?"

"Not to our knowledge," Bobby said, "but in this life, you kind of keep an open mind."

Dean set the Sharpie tip against paper again.

**LORE **

**S—LAP**

**B—CELL**

"Sure," Sam said. "I'll get on the laptop. What am I looking for?"

Bobby nodded. "I'll make the calls. What do you need specifically?"

His hand shook. He felt tremors run up his forearm. A muscle jumped high in his bicep. He gritted his teeth against it, felt the twitch in his jaw. Felt the clutching in his torso as it rose against the chest strap.

Jackson spoke sharply. "Sam—restraint. _Now_. I'm dosing him."

He managed one more letter:

**P **

Then Sam closed, snugged and buckled the restraint around his wrist. Dean felt the sedative begin to pull him away.

Crap. Not _now_. Not _now_.

He tapped his forefinger against the legal pad, frowned as he began the fall over the edge of the Niagara of medication.

"Damn it," Sam snapped, "I don't know what he means!"

"Let's just pull up all the lore we've got at hand," Bobby said. "You get online. I'll call Rufus."

Slip-sliding away . . .

"We can't do this again," Jackson warned.

His brother said exactly what Dean would, if he could. "We may have to."

_There you go, Sammy._

Bobby's voice was firm. "You get in the car with us, son, or you get the hell out of the way."

_Damn straight, Bobby Singer._

So," Jackson said after a moment, "what the hell _are_ black dogs?"

Probably Sam told him. Maybe Bobby did.

Dean didn't hear it.

* * *

**He remembered.**

They sat at a bar, at a booth, sucking down beer and knocking back whiskey. They'd toasted one another for taking out the black dog.

"One thing Bobby taught me," Dad said, "was that the lore is only as good as what's written down, and _how_ it's written. It comes from people like us, hunters; but also historians, those who keep the legends of the cultures. It was all oral tradition for centuries, until they invented pictographs, and letters. Though some never wrote shit down, because then it might be lost. It's not lost if it stays in the head, is handed down through stories."

Dean, back resting against the booth cushions, lifted one shoulder in a lazy hitch. "Dad, why are you giving me a history lesson?"

Dad, leaning forward, tapped a finger against the thick, leather-bound journal. "Because you don't get why I'm keeping this thing."

"No, I do, Dad. You want a record of our hunts, a reference in case we run into something again."

"That, yes. But look at it this way: I'm creating _lore_, Dean. Or adding to it. This journal will be yours one day, and someday you'll hand it on to someone else. It might provide a piece of knowledge some other hunter needs. You should be keeping your own journal."

Dean shook his head, let his eyes slide over the interior of the bar. Where'd that waitress gone? She was pretty hot, and she'd certainly seemed to think _he_ was. "Nah. I'm not much for writing shit down. You do it for the both of us."

"You could do it on the computer, Dean. I'm happy doing it the old-fashioned way, but you could just type a journal."

"We've got access to lore from online," Dean said. "And there's Bobby, and you've got your journal. Just treat me like a weapon, Dad: load me up with ammunition, shoot me. I'm not a brainiac. That's Sam's thing." He forgot about the waitress, locked eyes with his father. Saw, in those eyes, what he expected. "Sammy'd keep a journal. He'd be good at it."

Dad's mouth hardened. "Your brother isn't here anymore. May never be again. And you have to accept that, Dean. He's gone. He left. He made his choice."

"You sure as hell tried to talk him out of it. And you know damn well _yelling_ at him doesn't—didn't—do any good. He just yells back."

"Maybe if he'd said something, let us know what he was thinking about, that he was considering college—"

"You'd have shot him down, Dad. And you know it. Besides, I think he tried plenty of times to 'tell' us, in his own Sammy way. We just couldn't hear it. We were all about the hunt. About that damn demon." Dean picked up his mug, downed beer. "You put that in your journal, Dad? Is that part of the Winchester lore? That Sammy stuck it out for eighteen years, and then quit on us? Because that's how you see it. I know that. He 'quit.'"

Dad's voice deepened. "You're over the line, Dean."

"No, I'm not." Dean shook his head. "I went down beneath a black dog today, Dad. Could have lost my throat to it. But I didn't, because I filled its guts full of silver bullets. That buys me the right to say whatever I'd like."

"It does, does it?"

"It does. And I do." He shifted forward, leaned into forearms folded against the table. "You're all kinds of stubborn, Dad. You can be a bull-headed sonofabitch. But what you apparently don't get is that it's genetic."

Dad frowned. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"Sam. Okay, me, a little—but I mean _Sam_. You know how you've said I'm like Mom in some things? Well . . . Sam is all you." He quirked a smile. "You oughta try breaking up an argument between _two_ John Winchesters."

"He should be here, Dean. Not away at college."

"Yeah, well . . . one of these years maybe I'll drag him back."

Dad frowned. "If you think he should be there, why would you drag him back?

"Oh, I don't think he should be there. I think he should be _here_. But he made his choice, just as you said."

In the dimness of the bar, Dad's eyes looked almost black. "It's about protection, Dean. I protect my boys. You protect your brother. Short of us moving to Stanford and giving up the hunt, we can't protect him while he's there."

"Does he _need_ protecting while he's there? Our kind of protecting?"

Dad blew out a breath. "Maybe."

"Well, if he needs help, he'll call. But he'll be okay. After all, he was trained by the great John Winchester." Then he shot his father a grin. "And _me_. What could possibly go wrong?"

His father scowled. "Do you want me to count all the _buckets of ways_ things could go wrong?"

"Nah. Hey . . . Dad?"

"What now?"

"I may not head back to the motel tonight. I kinda think I'll be writing my own kind of lore, if you know what I mean."

Frowning, Dad turned his head, followed Dean's line of sight, saw the waitress. Gusted out a huff of amusement. "Yeah. You go celebrate a successful hunt, kid. I'll just take my creaky old bones back to the motel, fix myself some warm milk, get out my girly diary and write about my day."

"Lore, Dad. It's all lore."

Seven years later, Sam was here.

Dad was not.

* * *

He surfaced slowly, coming up from the depths of the sedative. Air moved into his lungs, air moved out. He heard the quiet noise of various machines, the constant melody of his current life.

He heard, too, the tapping of the keys. Sam, on the laptop. Looking up lore.

_Lore_.

He rolled his head, but Sam didn't notice. He was sitting upright in the recliner with a leg planted on either side of the footrest, laptop resting atop it as he typed. The light from the screen played across his face.

Dean rattled his restraint. It brought Sam's head up, captured his attention.

"Hey. How you doing?"

_How do you think?_

Yeah, Sam caught that unspoken reply. His mouth twitched. "Listen, Bobby's off making phone calls. Didn't want to do it here, maybe wake you. I'm just—"

But Sam broke it off as Dean rattled the restraint again, tapped his forefinger against the bedding.

Sam shook his head. "No. Maybe tomorrow, if we can talk Jackson into it. But not tonight. It's too soon. You almost triggered a few hours ago. Tomorrow."

He was _losing time_, dammit.

Dean licked his lips. Tried to mouth the words as clearly as possible.

_One._

_Minute._

Sam frowned. Didn't get it.

_One._

_Minute._

Dean raised his forefinger as far off the bed as he could. Left it in the air.

One.

He mouthed _'minute.'_

"One minute? You want me to take off the restraint for one minute?" Sam stared at him, considered it. "And then I buckle you back up."

Dean nodded. He hated the idea, but if he got his minute, he'd be happy.

He tipped his hand, pointed at small bedside table. Stared at his brother.

Sam ran a hand through his hair, sweeping it back. "I don't like it, but okay. One minute. That's all."

Dean nodded.

Sam retrieved the yellow pad, the Sharpie. He slid the tablet under Dean's right hand, unbuckled the restraint, positioned the fat-barreled marker in Dean's fingers.

With great care, Dean formed the letters. Kept it short.

**J R N L**

"Dad's journal? It's in the car, in the duffel. You want it?"

Dean nodded. Tapped the pen against words he'd written earlier.

**B DOG **

**LORE**

"Okay," Sam said. "I'll go get it. But—I've got to buckle you down again. Your hand is shaking."

So was his arm. Dean nodded. Looked away as Sam slipped the cuff around his wrist, fastened it snug.

He waited until his brother left the room. Then he stared hard up at the ceiling, wishing he could swear.

Swear aloud. And loudly.

Running on empty.

Running out of time.

Sweat bathed his flesh.

_"Your brother's not getting better. He's getting worse."_


	14. Chapter 14

**Chapter Fourteen**

* * *

Jackson came in to check Dean's vitals, IV drips, monitors, as Sam paged through the journal. He frowned a little as he removed the ear thermometer.

"Temp's elevated," he said. He lifted the chart from the end of the bed, made a notation.

Dean grimaced. Yeah. He kinda knew.

"I wish," Sam said in idle frustration, "that Dad had indexed this thing. You know, those nice little color-coded page tabs. One for Wendigo, another for Vengeful Spirit, something for Kitsune . . . even the urban legends. It would be nice, right now, to have one flagged BLACK FREAKIN' DOG."

"What are all those things?" Jackson asked. "Those names you mentioned?"

"Things we kill," Sam answered absently; and Dean figured that his brother and Bobby had done some discussing with the nurse about the supernatural, because while he clearly didn't know much, he wasn't dismissive. Cliff's Notes version, probably.

Then Bobby came in, raised his phone. "Rufus tracked down another hunter who's taken out a couple of black dogs, even got bit by one. He'll get ahold of him, ask him some questions."

"Here," Sam said abruptly. "Okay, yeah, Dad wrote some notes. Talks about a hunt you two did back in 2002. " He frowned. "Where was _I?"_ And then he realized, winced, and continued. "Okay, he says you guys tracked it in the woods near Prescott, Arizona. He's not too terribly complimentary about how you let it catch your scent."

Dean rolled his eyes. Bobby snickered.

"And he wrote this: '_Dean thinks the lore is complete. I don't. He says black dogs aren't poisonous. How do we know that?_'" Sam's head snapped up and he looked at Dean. "That's what the **P** was for. The **P** you wrote. Poison."

Dean nodded.

Bobby resettled his cap. "It's not in the lore that I can recall. But John's right: anything's possible. We only know what people _tell_ us, one way or another."

"You think you've been poisoned," Sam observed.

Dean lifted one shoulder in a slight shrug meaning '_Maybe_.'

Jackson was puzzled. "But you were bitten, too. If it's a poison, wouldn't that have gotten you as well?"

"Yeah, but . . . " Sam's eyes abruptly went hyperfocused. Dean had seen it before when his brother was thinking hard. "_But_, I had a tetanus booster last year." He shook his head, brow furrowed, eyes moving back and forth quickly as he thought.

Dean knew his brother was about to make one of his unquantifiable intellectual leaps. _He_ didn't know what Sam was about to come up with, but he trusted it to come.

And it did.

Sam's eyes focused as he looked at them. "I know it sounds crazy, but what if it's linked? What if the vaccine is an antidote? Because yes, you'd think if there's poison in a black dog bite that more people would die from it. But how many people _don't_ get tetanus shots in this country? Almost none." He paused. "Except for my moronic brother, that is, and I guess thirty-nine other people. But think about it . . . it's not that black dogs are common—I don't know how many there are in this country—but we have to assume bites do happen." He looked at Bobby. "Maybe you should call Rufus back and see if the hunter who got bitten was current on his tetanus booster. I'm betting he was, if he didn't get sick."

Bobby nodded. "I'll do that."

Sam said thoughtfully, "The doctor back in town gave Dean the globulin stuff."

"TIG," Jackson clarified. "Tetanus Immune Globulin. It's best to use the vaccine prophylactically, not after the fact, but it helps a little regardless."

"So it wouldn't counteract poison _after_ a bite, unlike snake antivenin." Sam pulled up the laptop again. "I want to see if the lore says anything about people dying from bites that weren't of themselves bad enough to kill them."

"You mean from infection?" Jackson asked. "Well, it would make sense. People can lose body parts to bad infections from _regular_ dog bites, if they don't treat promptly and properly."

Dean felt like screaming in frustration. He should be part of this conversation, and he wasn't.

Well, maybe he could change that. He rattled the restraint. When everyone looked at him, he gifted them with his very best Dean Winchester Glare of Determination.

Even Jackson read that. "_Oh_ no," he said. "That's not a good idea."

Dean looked hard at his brother. Then at Bobby. He didn't know if they understood the truth. He didn't know if doctors had told them what they hadn't yet told _him_, but that he knew very well regardless.

He wasn't an idiot. He understood his own body.

Lastly he looked at Jackson. With infinite care he shaped one word. He thought probably a nurse would understand it even without sound.

_Dying._

Jackson blinked in shock. After a moment, he nodded. "Okay. Sam, go ahead and undo the restraint. Dean, I'll stand by again with a sedative, but . . . I think you probably want to write as much as you can."

Dean raised brows and nodded.

"I'll hold off, but I can't give you long if you spasm. We can't risk you breaking bones."

Broken bones would heal, if he survived to do it.

Bobby's eyes were kind as he looked at Dean. "You'll get through this, son. You always do."

Sam's expression was a mask of worry and despair. But when their eyes met, Dean knew his brother would do whatever it took.

Jackson took a pre-filled syringe from the drawer. "Go for it."

Sam undid the restraint. Bobby placed the pad beneath Dean's hand, slid the Sharpie into his fingers.

Dean wrote:

**TOOTH**

"I've got it," Sam said. He dug down into the pocket of his jeans, pulled it out. Balanced it on end between thumb and forefinger.

"You took that out of your brother?" Jackson asked in shock. "My God, that sucker's big—what is that, four inches?"

"You should have seen the jaws it came out of," Sam said wryly. "Trust me, it's not pretty."

Jackson remained appalled. "You didn't _feel_ that?"

"We get pretty banged up in this job on a regular basis, so we're kind of used to aches and pains," Sam explained. "And he was worried about me. He's good at that. And _bad_ about looking after himself."

Dean put down the Sharpie, offered Sam his middle finger.

Sam grinned. "More to say?"

Dean picked up the marker again. Wrote:

**VAX. IN?**

Sam merely looked puzzled, then shook his head.

Dean thought a moment, then pointed the marker tip first to **IN?**, then to **VAX**.

"What's in a vaccine?" Sam translated. He looked at Jackson. "You're the one to ask."

The nurse shrugged. "Vaccines are made from viruses and bacteria. You use a live or killed form, depending on the disease you're innoculating against. It's basically a toxin that will jump-start the body's natural immune system. Tetanus vaccinations are given to babies as part of the traditional DTaP series, and once they hit a year it's recommended boosters be given every ten years thereafter."

Dean caught his brother's narrow-eyed stare. "You know, you asked _me_ if I'd had a booster recently. What, you don't count? Or is badass Dean Winchester afraid of a needle stick?"

Since badass Dean Winchester routinely had suturing needles poked through his skin without even the aid of a topical numbing agent, he determined that this sally was not in any way deserving of a reply. Which was good, because he couldn't give one anyway with a freakin' tube in his neck.

"'Basically a toxin,'" Bobby echoed. "Like snake venom. _And_, if there is such a thing—and it now seems likely there is—black dog poison."

"Let me check something," Sam said, returning to the laptop. After a moment he glanced up intently. "There's a story dating back about four hundred years about a man who died after being bitten by a 'large black beast-dog with glowing eyes,' which is classic black dog, but _before_ he died his body went through horrible contortions for days. His village thought it was the devil, that he was possessed."

Bobby grunted. "Sounds more like tetanus."

Sam nodded. "So let's accept as _prima facie_ evidence that Dean got tetanus from black dog poison coupled with bacterial infection. I didn't, because I had the vaccine. Plus, we treated my bite from the get-go. If it's the same with that hunter Rufus knows, I'd say we have confirmation."

"Goin' all lawyerly on us, Sam?" Bobby drawled.

"Well, you reminded me I was once pre-law."

Dean tapped the legal pad, got their attention. He pointed the Sharpie.

**TOOTH**

** VAX**

Then he wrote:

**ROOT**

** PLP**

** TISS**

Bobby read it aloud, expanding on the abbreviations. "Root. Pulp. Tissue."

"Holy crap," Sam said in startled discovery, "he wants us to make a vaccine!"

Dean smiled. Added:

**YAT-Z **

Bobby looked at Jackson. "You've got access to the resources we need right here," he said. "Can you take this tooth, extract pulp and whatever other residue is in there, do whatever you have to do to prep it, then put it in a syringe?"

"You don't just make a vaccine like that!" the nurse protested. "There's testing involved."

Dean tapped the tablet with the Sharpie, wrote:

**G PIG**

** ME**

"Then call it an antidote," Bobby growled, "if semantics are such a big damn deal."

Dean wrote:

**ADD TO TET &amp; H WTR  
**

Sam got it instantly. "Add this to the tetanus vaccine, double-down on another dose . . . plus holy water."

"Holy water?" Jackson echoed. "Will a priest give it to you?"

Bobby grunted. "We got that covered. Pretty much haul around gallon jugs of the stuff."

Dean meant to smile. Tried to. But a massive spasm abruptly ran down his arm. His head snapped back into the pillow.

"Sam—grab his arm!" Jackson commanded, inserting the needle into the IV port. "Get the cuff back on. I'm going to knock him out. Dean—I'm sorry, man. It's necessary."

Dean closed his eyes, felt the rebellion in his body. He could not prevent the reflection on his face of sheer physical pain as Sam pinned his arm, closed the restraint around it again. A moan made its way up from his gut.

"Jesus," Sam whispered. "This has to stop."

"Mr. Jackson." Bobby's voice was a low gritty growl that spoke volumes of his thoughts. "We need that antidote. We need to save this boy's life. Isn't that what nurses do?"

As Dean slid off the edge of the earth, he heard Jackson's answer.

"Yeah. It is what we do. And I will."

* * *

It was after the regular doctor's visit that Jackson came back into the room the next day. His expression was very serious, his reluctance clear.

Bobby straightened in his chair even as Sam sat upright in the recliner. "Well?"

The nurse pulled a capped syringe from his pocket. "There was pulp and tissue. Not much, but then who the heck knows a _dosage_ on this kind of thing? It's done. TIG, the holy water you gave me, and—tooth ick."

Sam was briefly amused. "'Tooth ick?' Nice medical terminology." But the humor spilled away as he looked at his brother.

"I don't know, man," Jackson said.

"Rufus confirmed the hunter _was_ bitten, _was_ up to date on his booster, and did not get sick," Bobby stated.

"You don't know what this might do!"

"The TIG won't hurt him," Sam said.

"No."

"Plus he's already got the poison in his system."

"I guess."

Dean rattled the restraint, got attention from all three men. Once again he mouthed one word directly to Jackson:

_Dying._

Jackson was clearly conflicted. "But it could kill you _faster_."

Two more words for the man:

_My_.

C_hoice._

"Nobody's asking you to do this, son," Bobby told the nurse. "You give me the syringe."

After a moment, Jackson passed it over. "In the glute," he said. "Faster than an IV."

Bobby smiled at Dean as he uncapped the syringe. "Not that I ever wanted to see your lily-white ass."

Dean smiled back crookedly, and then it faded. He fixed Bobby with an intent stare, nodded as much as he could.

As he looked at his brother, he saw tears in Sam's eyes. Felt them in his own.

Bobby shifted bedding, lifted the hem of Dean's gown along his right hip only so high as he had to and no more. "Okay, kid," he said gently, inserting the needle. "Here goes nothin' . . . or a whole lotta somethin'." Bobby depressed the plunger.

It took him down fast.

It took him down _hard_.


	15. Chapter 15

**Chapter Fifteen**

* * *

**He remembered.**

"Dean. Come on, son. You can do it. You're safe, now. I know the venom made you pretty sick, but it's out of your system now."

"How do you know?" Sammy asked.

"See how he's sweating? His fever broke."

"He smells funny, Dad. I mean, not like _pee_ . . . just different."

"It's the venom. He's sweating it out now. It's how a body purges itself of poison. Doesn't smell great, no, but it's a good sign."

"His lips aren't so blue anymore."

"No, his lungs are clearing so he's getting more oxygen."

He felt Dad's hand on his shoulder, sensed the big body sitting close on the edge of his bed. He wanted to say something, wanted to open his eyes, but he was so _tired_.

"Did he almost die, Dad?"

"No, Sammy. If I thought he was that sick, I'd have taken him to a hospital."

"But he was really sick."

"I followed what the lore said, son. To the letter. Checked it with Bobby to be certain. The tincture worked as it should. 'Course, he may feel a little hung over, but that's not fatal."

"You mean—he's drunk?"

Dad laughed. "Well, not as you might think. But tinctures are alcohol-based. At twelve he's not much of a drinker yet, though—at least, he'd damn well better not be—so he may feel it a bit when he wakes up."

Dean wanted to move, but he couldn't.

"Dad." Sam's eight-year-old voice was small. "I don't want him to die."

"Your brother's not going to die, Sammy."

"Not ever."

"Well, we all die someday."

"It didn't hurt me. This would hurt me. I know Dean."

Dad sounded puzzled. "What do you mean, Sammy?"

"Mom died . . . and I know it really hurt you and Dean, but . . . I never knew her. It makes me sad, real sad, but it doesn't _hurt_. It doesn't make me ache inside, the way it does you and Dean. It's like I know I'm supposed to feel really bad, but I don't."

Dad didn't speak for a moment. When he did, his voice sounded odd. Sounded thick. "That makes sense, Sammy. Because it's true, you never got to know your mother. You can feel sorry when someone dies, but when you don't _know_ them, when you never got that chance . . . it's okay, Sammy. You shouldn't feel that you have to grieve."

"If Dean died, it would hurt _horribly_. I think I'd cry all the time."

Dad's breath caught. "You and me both, kid."

"Why won't he wake up?"

"He'll wake up. His color's better, his breathing's clear, and his fever's broken.

"Can I touch him?"

"Of course you can touch him."

"Okay."

Dean heard and felt movement. Sammy crawled up in the bed next to him. He shifted his skinny body close, face down, draped his left arm across Dean's chest, rested his head very gently on Dean's shoulder.

"Wake up," he whispered. "Wake up, big brother. I love you. I need you."

Dean opened his eyes.

Always, for Sammy.

* * *

"Wake up. Wake up, big brother. Beauty sleep's over. They're calling you a medical miracle; how 'bout you wake up so you can brag on it? All the doctors are flummoxed. Jackson says it's the first time a quote/unquote 'mere nurse' knows more than the rich-ass specialists. "

Sam's baritone. Sam's hand tapping his chest. Dean opened his eyes.

"_There_ you are," Sam said, sounding immensely pleased.

Dean squinted. His eyes didn't want to focus properly. But he saw the tall Sam-shaped blob looming over him from his bedside.

Damn, but his throat was sore. Felt raw on the inside, and the flesh of his neck was irritated. He lifted a hand to it, felt bandaging. "What's this?"

It came out rough and broken. And then all his systems came back online as if someone had flipped a switch, and he _knew_.

Hands, free. Legs. No restraints. No tubes. No tubes anywhere. No wires, no hoses.

"Holy shit," he croaked, "I feel like freakin' Braveheart."

Sam's eyes widened as his brows leaped upward. "Why do you feel like Braveheart?"

"William Wallace."

"I know who he was, Dean. Why do you feel like him?"

Dean scowled. Why was it his brainiac brother could be so dense about movies? "_Freedom_," he rasped dramatically, and then went off into a fit of coughing.

"Here. Have some water." Sam elevated the head of his bed, offered a cup with a straw. "Your throat's irritated from the tube. The doc said it'll take a few days to settle down. And your neck's sore and bandaged because they closed up the trach opening yesterday. Drink, okay?"

Dean grasped the cup with his unrestrained right hand, grinned broadly at his brother—_freeedommmm! (_complete with a mental Scottish accent)—then sipped up several cool swallows that did indeed ease the coughing and settle his throat.

He pushed the cup back at Sam, then thrust both forearms up into the air and inspected them. Front and back. Bent up his legs so knees tented the bedclothes. Attempted a glorious stretch, but then his abdomen twinged. He slapped both hands down against it, staring in horror at his brother.

"Slow down," Sam said, who did not appear unduly disturbed by the possibility of a nasty spasm.

"Hey, it's awake." Jackson strode into the room. "Yeah, you're going to have a _lot_ of residual soreness for awhile. Your heart's normal, your chest is clear, you won't suffer those big-time spasms anymore, but a body doesn't just _get over_ tetanus, and certainly not a supernatural version. Go easy, guy. Your muscles are going to be rags for awhile, and you may experience some twitches and shakes, even some cramping. All normal. That stuff counteracted the poison, but didn't snap you back into whatever shape you were in before the dog got you."

Dean gazed up at the man. "I was in _spectacular_ shape before the dog got me. I was in _stupendous_ shape. I was in freakin' _superhero _shape, dude."

"Here we go," Sam murmured in resignation. "Full-on Dean Winchester."

"I mean, you're a big guy," Dean told the nurse, his voice a broken rasp, "and you've probably got twenty pounds on me—"

"Try fifty," Jackson interjected dryly.

"—but I could so take you."

"Maybe in Scrabble, because I'm really bad at that, but anything physical?—nah, don't think so. Man, I was, like, Ironman _and_ Captain America when I was in college. Combined."

Dean quirked one brow. "I dunno, dude, you look like you've been hitting the beer tap pretty regular."

Jackson patted his scrub-covered gut. "What, this? Don't let it fool you, Winchester. Underneath this is nothing but sheer muscle."

Sam sighed. "You know, all this superhero male bonding crap is verging on emo. What do they call it for guy movies? Testo-flick?"

Nurse and patient, equally baffled, asked it together: "What?"

"Testosterone."

Dean stared at his brother. "Sammy, _you've_ got testosterone." Then he waved a hand. "Well, sometimes. Because you can certainly go the whole estrogen route when you feel like it.

"Maybe 'boy-toy' moment."

Dean felt carefully at his neck again, tracing the bandages. "No, Sam. Boy-toys are like classic cars, speed boats, dump trucks."

"Dump trucks?"

"I always wanted a dump truck." He gazed down at his left hand, and the IV catheter he'd just discovered. "Why do I still have this in me?"

"Because you're still getting muscle relaxants," Jackson explained. "You're off the bags now, but I'll give you a mini-dose now and then."

Dean frowned. "I thought I was done with all that shit."

"Oh, I don't think you want to be done with all that shit just yet," the nurse said, smiling. "Like I said, you could still cramp up now and then. Not like the major spasms, but your muscles haven't quite gone back to their factory settings, yet. Plus, you may need a little bit for pain now and then, because of your back. We'll put you in a brace before you leave tomorrow, but there's going to be some discomfort."

Dean brightened. "Tomorrow?"

"Yup. It took two days for the TIGTI to scour your system clear, but for the last twelve hours you've just been sleeping. All vitals normal. Docs took you off all the monitors this morning. We'll see how things go overnight, but you should be discharged tomorrow afternoon."

Dean frowned at him. "What the hell is Tig-Tye?"

Sam grinned. "Tetanus Immune Globulin and Tooth Ick."

Dean blinked. "Tooth?—never mind. Okay. So long as it's not anything like tie-dye. That shit makes people look like they vomited a rainbow all over themselves."

"Uh, no," Jackson said. "TIGTI, not tie-dye."

He was mollified. "Okay." He rolled his wrists, flexed his forearms. Felt the stick from the IV needle still in the back of his hand, but even that was okay because it meant he could _move_ the damn hand. Then he looked at Sam. "Where's Bobby?"

"Rufus needed some intel. Bobby said since you were on the mend, he'd head out to take care of it. Besides, he said he'd been so blinded by your lily-white ass that he needed to go buy sunglasses." Sam paused. "You really could pass for a vampire, you know, since you utterly lack the tanning gene. Sometimes I think you even sparkle."

This time Dean could bestow upon his brother a clear, full-on, _unrestrained_ presentation of his eloquent middle finger. "Sparkle this."

* * *

The next afternoon Dean was summarily discharged from the hospital, and Jackson pushed him outside in a wheelchair as Sam pulled the Impala up to the curb. He parked the chair, set the brakes, bent down to peer into the interior of the passenger side.

"You like classic cars?" Dean asked.

Jackson straightened, turned back with a smile. "I've got a cherry '69 Camaro SS. She was my late dad's, and I do my best to keep her up the way he did."

"Duuude!"

Sam climbed out of the car, came around it. "Are we boy-toying again?"

"Okay, okay." Dean made a sweeping, hurry-up gesture. "I want to get back on the road with my baby. And my damn vertebrae had better heal fast, because I want to get behind the wheel, not let my baby sister drive her!"

Sam opened the passenger door, swung it wide in the familiar creaky complaint.

Jackson flinched. "Hey, man, you need some WD-40! Or new hinges! You gotta get that fixed!"

"Nonono," Dean said. "Baby's perfect just the way she is. That gives her _character._"

Jackson shook his head. "How do you guys ever sneak up on anything when your car makes that kind of racket?"

"I asked him that, once," Sam said pointedly.

With some asperity, Dean explained, "There's nothing wrong with parking down the street. Exercise is good for the body. Now, can we _go_?"

"You can go," the nurse said. "Okay, you're going to be stiff in this brace and you'll feel off-balance. Just remember you can relax into it, let it support _you_. Now, let me get you on your feet. _Gently, _my man." And the big nurse was indeed gentle as he helped Dean out of the chair and onto his feet.

Dean wobbled. "Whoa. Head rush."

"I've got you," Jackson said. "Okay, down into the car. Easy, easy . . . yeah, see what I mean about the muscles?"

Holy crap, but he felt weak as he was settled against the seat with the big nurse's aid.

"It's going to be this way for awhile," Jackson continued, "but the PT routine I gave you will help. Okay, you set? Here's your bag. It's got the stuff from the room that we send home with patients, discharge papers, the works. There's also a Zip-Loc bag with meds in there, and instructions. Don't try to be a hero, super or otherwise. You were sick, man . . . really sick. Gotta be frank—_nobody_ expected you to make it out alive."

From the seat, Dean smiled up at the nurse. "Sammy did. And Bobby."

Jackson extended a hand, and they clasped forearms. "Be good, man. Stay alive. Oh, and there's a booklet I put in the bag just for you. Read it." He released the brakes on the wheelchair, spun it, headed back toward the entrance.

Dean nodded, pulled the door closed as Sam got back in behind the wheel. "Pretty cool dude. I could so take him, though."

"Don't think so, Dean. He played football at Ohio State. Won the National Championship in 1998."

Dean contemplated that. "Well, there's still Scrabble." He dug into the bag as Sam started the engine, eased his way off the curb. "What is—ohhh, man!" He flashed a brightly-colored booklet in his brother's general direction. "_'How To Teach Your Children That Shots Are Friendly._' That's a low blow. And what else?—oh, _dude_!" He pulled from the bag a folded tie-dyed t-shirt. "You are so dead if I ever get back this way."

Sam was laughing.

"I don't even want to _sleep_ in this thing. It would give me nightmares." He sighed, turned with infinite care to toss the booklet, tee, and bag into the back seat. "Where's Dad's journal?"

"Back in the duffel. Why?"

"Well, there are some empty pages in the back. Thought I'd write a little."

"You? Write what? "

"Well, tig-tye for one."

"That's spelled T-I-G-T-I, Dean. Just so you know."

"Whatever. I just thought maybe I should write up what happened, what we did."

Sam's dimples flashed. "You mean—create _lore_?"

"Intel."

"Lore."

"Okay. Lore. Yeah."

"You okay?"

"I'm fine. Why?"

"You look uncomfortable."

Dean scowled fiercely. After so much time being nothing but a patient, he hated reminders that he still wasn't himself. "I'm in a stupid back brace and my muscles feel like runny mashed potatoes, so yeah, I'm a little uncomfortable. But I'm good. Hell, it's better than the alternative."

"Well, yeah."

Dean blew out a breath, leaned back as best he could. "Yeah, I'm good." He put on sunglasses, closed his eyes.

As Sam took them out onto the highway, he ventured a "Hey?"

Dean replied with a "Huh?"

"Can we get a dog?"

He didn't even bother opening his eyes. "No."

Sam waited a beat. "Can we get one of those little swimmer turtles?"

"What, and haul a freakin' _aquarium_ around with us? _In my car_?"

"Wouldn't take up much room. And I promise to feed it, take it for walks, the whole nine yards. I'll even name it Herschel. Just for you."

"And what if it's a female?"

"Herschelette?"

Dean thought that over. "No, not Herschelette."

"What then?"

Dean said, _"Samantha._"

Sam laughed for at least two minutes. Then he said on a sigh, as the laughter stilled, "Dude, I am so glad you're alive."

He still didn't open his eyes. "Me, too, Sammy. Me, too. Now, stop with the emo chick-flick moment so I can go to sleep and dream about boy-toy shit."

* * *

**~ end ~**

* * *

_A/N: Several people have asked. Yes, I researched tetanus for this story and every symptom, every complication featured in this fic—and the degree thereof—is accurate. In fact, there are much worse symptoms than Dean experienced. I can't swear that physical restraints are used, but it seemed a logical progression if meds aren't wholly effective (short of medically-induced coma), and of course Dean's case had a supernatural element. Having now done this research, I will most certainly be more careful about scheduling boosters! Probably none of us will ever be bitten by a supernatural black dog, but those infamous rusty nails are out there!_

_Why tetanus? I wanted to work with a very ordinary-seeming malady that we all know about, one with symptoms that could simply be related to an active and violent lifestyle so that it would sneak up on Dean - and, I hoped, the reader._

_I confess that while indulging my taste for h/c, I also had a tremendous amount of fun with the brotherly banter, and I hope it afforded readers some smiles and chuckles along the way. Thanks for taking this ride with me! And if you left reviews along the way, bless you! 8-D  
_


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